if you know me well, you will know that community is a big deal to me. if you're in a healthy and good one, it's in community that you can find beautiful things like redemption, healing, honesty, forgiveness, love... i think that one way the gospel is shown is in how we have relationship with one another. it is no easy task, though. it is so difficult to not want to judge or be vindictive. but when lived out well, it can be the most incredible thing you've ever been a part of. i am who i am today because of the people in my life. there are certain people who are a big part of who i am.
but then that is also becoming really scary to me. i mean it always has been, but i guess i'm just realizing more and more how essential community is. but it's scary to me cause what happens if someone leaves? what if for whatever reason some person is either removed from your community or has to play a different, lessened role? maybe i'm just super sensitive, but i think that kind of change can be so hard to process. maybe i just don't deal with change well. (well. ok i know i don't deal with change well.) but that thought is just really scary to me for some reason. it leaves me feeling empty and unsure.
i guess the risk is part of what makes it so good, though. and to me it is so worth the risk. to have people in your life that know you, and i mean really and truly know you, and love you and have patience with you despite and even because of everything... it's unreal.
thank you.
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3 comments:
I love you. I've been discovering the same thing this semester, and I don't know what I'd do without you. God's done something really special in our community . . . we're ridiculously blessed.
I can't wait to see you in a couple of weeks!
Great thoughts, Julia. Here are a couple of mine in response.
Community is essential to human life. And, like human life itself, community is always in transition. Change is essential to life, and it is essential to community.
A particular community is going to change. Its even going to die. And while I agree that this is scary, it is also something that can and should be celebrated. Like we celebrate births, marriages and deaths (all of which change life forever), we can also celebrate the comings and goings, and even the end of communities.
Communities change. My need for community will never go away.
One of the hopes of the Gospel is that we are all moving toward a Community--the eternal Body of Christ--that will never go away.
I also find that not only is it unreal, the reason it's unreal is because it is so insanely real. It shocks me so much how just being open with someone mutually can spread such a feeling of well being and conection to everything. I completely agree with you on this one.
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