What Happens To You Matters To Me...Living Life In Community
Over the last couple of months I have been thinking a lot about community. The people that I surround myself with, the ones I invest in, the people I choose to make my people. The people I go to in the good and the bad times. The ones who make me better just by being in my life.
When I moved to Los Angeles six months ago, I did not have a close group of people to call my own, I had a new church, new neighbors, and new friends. God has helped bring those people into my life, to look after me, pray for me, eat chocolate with me and talk me out of bad decisions.
But even with those bonds being built over these last few months, I still have my hesitations towards being in community with people. I am not fully giving myself to these new relationships. As I was thinking about these hesitations the other day, I started to think about Thailand. Going away to Thailand was the first time in my life that I was away from my family for an extended period of time. Which felt strange because at home if I was having trouble with friends or something in my life, I at least had my family to go to.
In Thailand, I knew no one.
Everybody I met was a stranger. I learned that I had to open up to people quickly because I needed a community of people around me, to do life with. It was in that season of my life that I experienced the most real and authentic Christian community. I saw that interdependence was not only necessary but life giving. Though I missed my family back home, my Thai family cared for me, taught me and most of all...loved me. And I loved them back.
I did not realize how much I loved and cherished my Thai family until I was saying my goodbyes. I did not realize how attached I was to a group of people until I found myself sitting on my own bed in America, feeling like someone just tore a huge piece of my heart out. The community that I had built my daily life around for those ten months was now on the other side of the world. I never thought I could miss people that much. During that time of missing them, I found this quote,
"Embrace the pain of missing people, because that means you have opened up your heart to love." (anonymous).
I missed them all so much because I had opened myself up to be vulnerable and love within that community of people.
Now that I am in Los Angeles I think about how I have started the community building process all over again. And I wonder...am I setting myself up for pain? How long will I get to be this group of people? Do I distance myself to stay safe? Those are all self-preservation questions, questions that push me away from people because I am scared. Scared of getting hurt, of being alone, or getting rejected. These are what make me hesitate and make me second guess that decision to meet new friends or have lunch with friend I am already getting close to.
Except...I was not made to live in fear, I was made to be part of the body of Christ. Will there be suffering down the road, most definitely but Christ knows our suffering and he is there with us. In the last few months I have seen how God has brought people together to support each other and it has been beautiful. If I or any of my friends were to have gone through our struggles alone, I think we would have lived with so much pain and felt so alone in that pain. So unnecessarily alone. Family, friends, neighbors, church brother and sisters, this is community and God uses those people to show us his love and help us heal. I think that a lot of people have hesitations like mine but it is time to stop living in fear.
I am going to love, invest, sacrifice and take the risk because community is worth it. God made us for community because He knows that it is good and wants us to experience Him with and through others. Being in community with others is not easy, it is messy and frustrating but the love that comes out of it cannot me measured.
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one...Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness...It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."- C.S. Lewis
When I moved to Los Angeles six months ago, I did not have a close group of people to call my own, I had a new church, new neighbors, and new friends. God has helped bring those people into my life, to look after me, pray for me, eat chocolate with me and talk me out of bad decisions.
But even with those bonds being built over these last few months, I still have my hesitations towards being in community with people. I am not fully giving myself to these new relationships. As I was thinking about these hesitations the other day, I started to think about Thailand. Going away to Thailand was the first time in my life that I was away from my family for an extended period of time. Which felt strange because at home if I was having trouble with friends or something in my life, I at least had my family to go to.
In Thailand, I knew no one.
Everybody I met was a stranger. I learned that I had to open up to people quickly because I needed a community of people around me, to do life with. It was in that season of my life that I experienced the most real and authentic Christian community. I saw that interdependence was not only necessary but life giving. Though I missed my family back home, my Thai family cared for me, taught me and most of all...loved me. And I loved them back.
I did not realize how much I loved and cherished my Thai family until I was saying my goodbyes. I did not realize how attached I was to a group of people until I found myself sitting on my own bed in America, feeling like someone just tore a huge piece of my heart out. The community that I had built my daily life around for those ten months was now on the other side of the world. I never thought I could miss people that much. During that time of missing them, I found this quote,
"Embrace the pain of missing people, because that means you have opened up your heart to love." (anonymous).
I missed them all so much because I had opened myself up to be vulnerable and love within that community of people.
Now that I am in Los Angeles I think about how I have started the community building process all over again. And I wonder...am I setting myself up for pain? How long will I get to be this group of people? Do I distance myself to stay safe? Those are all self-preservation questions, questions that push me away from people because I am scared. Scared of getting hurt, of being alone, or getting rejected. These are what make me hesitate and make me second guess that decision to meet new friends or have lunch with friend I am already getting close to.
Except...I was not made to live in fear, I was made to be part of the body of Christ. Will there be suffering down the road, most definitely but Christ knows our suffering and he is there with us. In the last few months I have seen how God has brought people together to support each other and it has been beautiful. If I or any of my friends were to have gone through our struggles alone, I think we would have lived with so much pain and felt so alone in that pain. So unnecessarily alone. Family, friends, neighbors, church brother and sisters, this is community and God uses those people to show us his love and help us heal. I think that a lot of people have hesitations like mine but it is time to stop living in fear.
I am going to love, invest, sacrifice and take the risk because community is worth it. God made us for community because He knows that it is good and wants us to experience Him with and through others. Being in community with others is not easy, it is messy and frustrating but the love that comes out of it cannot me measured.
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one...Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness...It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."- C.S. Lewis
you're not alone in this.
ReplyDelete