Community

Take it from someone who doesn’t have much of it right now, Community is more important than you think.

Whether you call it family or sorority sisters or a small group, community is a tightly-knit team, maybe without the matching jerseys.  Community means friends who know your Story and can hand it back to you when you forget.  It’s the people called in panic to when you have to run to the ER, and it’s the friends who already know their way around your kitchen.  It’s the people who’ll give up a Saturday to paint your deck or look under the hood of your car, and it’s the men and women who make it into your scrapbook and your vacations.  Community is born over memories made and losses suffered, over conflicts endured and dreams shared.  And always, always, it is cultivated with time. Lots of time.

And I had the opportunity to spend three hours at dinner with a friend from Colorado, who is here currently with a team of volunteers. And this thirsty soul drank Community. At a restaurant where you take off your shoes to eat, I unloaded, and she listened.  And she got teary-eyed, and she reminded me of the place from which I came.  She handed back to me the Call, and she entered in.

And tonight, she’s coming over to watch my kids so that Matt and I can have a romantic night away, and my throat is choked just thinking about it.  This gift of Community– the relational connection and the practical service. It is how we are wired as humans to move forward, to endure our workdays and weekends, to raise our kids and work-out our marriages. It is how we were designed to live out our Christ-following.

And, from the place where I sit currently, in a land where my options for relationships have suddenly shrunk and I find myself once again at ground zero, I taste a palatable regret.  I regret the ways I didn’t pursue Community when I was surrounded by opportunities for it.  I regret that I didn’t make the time to invite more families over for dinner on a Tuesday night (even if my house was messy), and I regret that I didn’t plan more weekends away with friends (even if it cost some money).  I regret that I didn’t call someone to help when I really needed it, and I hate that I so often chose the comfort of the television instead of the challenge of real life.

I regret that I didn’t clear the schedule more to pursue Community with an I’m-going-to-fall-apart-if-I-don’t-cultivate-this level of passion.

Because we are just not made to go it alone.

What is one way you need to pursue Community more this week?

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Tagged as: church, community, expat living. struggles of life overseas, importance of community, missionary mom