Pursuing Community

You know how making the choice to go to the gym or order a salad instead of pizza is hard, but you try to do it anyway because you know it will be better for you in the long run?  That’s kind of how I feel about inviting people into the hard places in my life or entering into those places with other people.  Over the past few years, miscarriages, infertility, cancer, and suicide have marked people I love.  Throw in the normal, everyday tests of sickness, finances, and job stress, and it’s enough to make me want to curl up into the fetal position and vow to never leave my house again!  Since I’m an introvert by nature, when I’m going through a trial in my life, my natural tendency is to shut down.  Reaching out in a time like this feels counterintuitive. It seems easier to not let people in.  Easier, perhaps, but lonely.

We’re not meant to trudge through this life on our own.  Our triune God is relational in His very nature.  Three in One.  And He has created us to need relationships.  We don’t need to let the entire world in.  There’s certainly a level of discernment when it comes to who we can trust with our struggles.  And even with those we let in, we may have to endure some less than helpful platitudes at times because, while our people may mean well, they’re also human.  But hopefully, we have those one or two relationships that will breathe life back into us and point us to Jesus.  I don’t know about you but when I’m going through a difficult season, I need to be reminded that the same power that raised Christ from the grave is at work in me and in my situation (Romans 8:11), just as He has been so many other times in my life. 

I also need to be willing to enter into other people’s hard situations.  When I watch God show up for my friends and family as they endure suffering, I am reminded that He will do the same for me. I too will be able to overcome the trials in my own life, not in my own strength but in the strength He gives me. I can walk in confidence because of others before me whom I have watched walk in confidence in God and His faithfulness.

We’ve all heard or been on one end of an exchange that goes something like this:

Well meaning person: “How are you making it through XYZ situation?!”

Person in the thick of it: “God’s grace, honestly.  And our community has been so supportive.”

Well meaning person: “Still, I don’t think I could be that strong if I went through that!”

Usually they (we) mean it as a compliment to the person going through the situation.  But in a way, we’re robbing God of the glory He deserves when we say that we don’t think we could make it.  I’m not trying to take anything away from the amazing, strong people in my life who I have watched gracefully navigate incredibly hard seasons.  But if we really believe that God is who He says He is, don't we trust that, in His infinite grace, He'll give us the same faith to get through hard things when (not if) we face them?  Second Corinthians 1:3-5 (NIV) says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.”

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been reaching out to some local girls.  Some I know fairly well from church.  Others I’ve only met once or twice or just through email introductions.  But all of us are in our twenties and thirties, single, and needing community!  Last week we met for the first time, decided on a study to do together, and got to know each other a bit.  Last night, we got started on the study we chose, Annie F. Downs’ Looking for Lovely.  It is a study on looking for God even in hard seasons and learning to persevere through those struggles.  I’m so thankful that God has provided this new group of women I can now call friends.

No matter which end of the exchange we’re on, there’s something to be given and gained from being in community in the middle of our hard seasons.  When we invite people into our trials, we receive encouragement and allow people to see God’s power at work in our lives.  When other people invite us into their difficult seasons, we get to offer comfort and see God’s faithfulness in their lives.  What a beautiful way to live.