Reimagining Community

Welcome to Grace and Space, a weekly newsletter from the Deconstructing Mamas Podcast! GRACE for who you have been, are now and SPACE for who you are becoming and will be!

There’s a particular ache that comes when the community we once called home no longer fits. It’s not just losing a place or a group of people — it’s losing a rhythm, an identity, a way of being known.

For many of us, the communities we left behind were built around sameness. Same beliefs. Same behaviors. Same language. Same expectations.

Belonging depended on staying inside the lines — and once we stepped outside them, everything shifted.

We didn’t just lose people.We lost a version of ourselves.

How the Loss Lived in Us

The grief showed up in our bodies as fatigue and sadness — that quiet heaviness you carry even when everything looks normal on the outside.

Our daily rhythms didn’t crumble; the unraveling was slow. But inside, everything was loosening.

Spiritually, we traded “required reading” for the books that helped us unlearn and understand our own stories. And strangely, beautifully, new kinds of community began taking shape.

Our online book club. Esther’s spiritual direction cohort. Our own little nuclear families. People who showed up without agenda and loved us for who we were becoming.

Lizz found unexpected community with the moms at her small-town school — women who didn’t need her to believe or behave a certain way to belong. It was the one of the first times community didn’t require shrinking.

The Tension of Wanting and Fearing

We’ve longed to belong again. Truly. But we’ve also feared being hurt, misunderstood, or asked to abandon ourselves to stay included.

We’re learning to honor both — the ache for connection and the instinct to protect our hearts.

Because belonging without authenticity isn’t belonging.

What We Need Now

We need spaces where:

listening matters more than certainty
curiosity is welcome
people are allowed to evolve
we don’t have to abandon ourselves to be embraced

We need community that is big enough, soft enough, and human enough to hold our questions and our whole selves.

The New Shape of Community

When we imagine community now, it looks freer — not limited to people who think, act, or worship like we used to.

It feels:

spacious
safe
grounded in presence, not performance

And the possibilities are endless.

Chosen family. Online groups. Pick up line moms.

Spiritual companions.

People who show up with no agenda other than love.

Community has become something wider and truer than anything we once imagined.

For the One Still Grieving

If you’re missing what you lost and unsure what comes next, we’re with you.

You’re not faithless. You’re not alone. You’re simply outgrowing a version of belonging that was too small for your soul.

New community will come — often quietly, from unexpected places — but it will be real. And you’ll know it by the way your shoulders drop and your breath deepens.

*Written by Esther Joy Goetz*

🎧 This Week on the Podcast

In this third-to-last episode of Deconstructing Mamas, we talk about one of the biggest questions we’ve been asked over the past four years:

What does community look like now, after everything we’ve lost?

For so many of us, the communities we left behind were built around sameness — shared beliefs, shared behaviors, shared expectations. Belonging depended on staying inside the lines, and when we stepped outside them, everything changed.

In this honest conversation, we explore:

what we were actually grieving when those communities fell apart
how the loss showed up in our bodies, rhythms, and spiritual lives
the tension of wanting connection again but fearing hurt or misunderstanding
what we truly need from community now (and what we’re no longer willing to sacrifice)
the surprising, tender ways new community has begun to grow

We talk about Esther’s spiritual direction cohort, our online book club, and the friends who love us with no agenda. And we talk about Lizz’s experience finding unexpected connection with the moms at her small-town school — community without pressure, performance, or shrinking.

If you’re in the in-between — grieving what was and unsure what comes next — this episode is for you. There is a way forward. It may be smaller, softer, slower…but it will be truer.

And you’ll know it by how deeply you can breathe there.

One last thing. We want to remind you that we are so glad you are here. We wouldn't be the same without you. You will always find GRACE for where you've been and who you are now, and SPACE for who you are becoming and will be.

Carry on, our new-found friends. Welcome to the twisty-windy, full -of-adventure faith path that's laid out before us all.

Love,

Lizz & Esther

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