Finding Community When I Felt Alone

Michelle Nott reflects on her experience of unexpected community support during her husband’s deployment.

My husband is in the National Guard and usually has military training one weekend a month and then a few weeks over the summer. However, even the National Guard gets deployed, and my family found ourselves in this situation last May.

My husband was gone for about 10 months. Thankfully, he came home at the beginning of April, right before Easter! We are so happy to be together again as a family.

My life has changed from what it looked like a year ago. I was so nervous as we approached his upcoming deployment. We have six young kids, and no family close by. I knew some people from the gym and church, but the people I knew had their own families with young kids. The weekends that my husband had drills were difficult because I would have to bring all six with me to Mass by myself, and I was very overwhelmed. I was longing for a community, but I was not sure how to find one.

Finding My Community

One day I had a meeting with our pastor, and he started asking me about my husband’s upcoming deployment. I told him how difficult it was to make it to Mass by myself with all the kids. After this meeting, our pastor reached out to some families to see how they could support us, and then one of the deacons volunteered to help organize volunteers to help our family while my husband was gone.

My husband and I had an initial meeting with the deacon and his wife to go over details of how we would need help. I wasn’t exactly sure what things were going to look like when my husband left, but I felt a little better knowing I wasn’t going to have to handle things on my own this time. However, I do have a hard time admitting I need help, so it took me a while to feel completely comfortable relying on people I did not know very well.

During the Deployment

Before I knew it, departure day arrived and my husband left. But we did have a plan in place for rides to kids’ activities and help at Mass. The day he left, I met with the deacon to go over details of activities coming up. There was one activity that night that I insisted I didn’t need help with (I later regretted this decision during a big meltdown!). Keep in mind, the only person I really knew who volunteered to help us was the deacon because I had met him before my husband left. Everyone else who volunteered initially, I did not know before they volunteered to help us.

This initial hesitation to ask for help did not last long. Soon I was reaching out to everyone and saying yes whenever someone would offer to take the kids somewhere or bring over a meal.

I did not realize at the time how close we would get to everyone, and just how much of our church community was taking care of us. I had help with laundry, rides for the kids, babysitting, extra hands at Mass, going grocery shopping, meals brought to us once a week, childcare during school breaks, Christmas gifts for my kids, very patient teachers who helped my kids work through big emotions, emergency contacts to call when my kids were very sick or hurt and needed to go into the doctor right away, someone to talk to about all the problems at home, home improvements while my husband was gone, rides to and from the airport for family members that came to visit, and more. Most of all, we had so many people praying for us and for my family. I know that their prayers kept my husband safe.

I never expected to feel so included in our community. I felt the importance of stepping up for one another and treating each other as family and with kindness. I am so fortunate to have the support of our church community. And I sincerely hope that one day I can help someone else as much as everyone else helped me during one of the most challenging years of my life.

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Copyright 2026 Michelle Nott
Images: Canva