Monday, Facebook Memories showed me this picture. It's from March 19, 2016. It's the day I moved into my apartment; really, it's the day that everything in my life began to change.
It's the day I moved into a neighborhood where I am the decided minority (in more ways than one), where I surrounded myself with people I literally don't understand, because we speak a different language. The day I decided to follow God into something bigger, something more; the day I decided (again) that comfort zones weren't all they were cracked up to be.
It's the day I began to meet a lot of people who have become so dear to me now. People and families who are friends, kids who have adopted me as a surrogate teacher and some form of big sister.
It's the day I began really learning exactly how much I still don't know. When abstract thoughts and theologies and ideologies became decidedly less abstract. Because I jumped into a community with people whose cultures and backgrounds are so different from my own, whose concerns and cares are often far from what I'm familiar with. When God began to let me see how much this "intentional neighboring" and community building life really requires, how it hurts to see neighbors and friends fighting for their lives because of systems and oppression and racism and misinformation. It's no longer abstract when there are names and faces and friends attached to these "issues" and "politics."
It's the day God really began to showing me how much we're missing when we separate ourselves. That we don't include, that we ignore, that we push to the side. That we're a family, but we don't always see it, and how sad it is. That we have a lot to learn and so far to go.
It's the day God began working things out of my life, including the fact that life is not about me; that none of this is about me. Life is more full when we give to others. When our hearts crack and break and stretch, they actually become bigger and more lovely. When He calls us into something, yeah, we're going to learn and grow and love and be loved better...but it's not about us, it's about Him, about everyone else.
It's the day that began two of the hardest years of my life (not because of where I live). It's the day that changed my "career path," my life, my heart. It's the day, looking back, that pieces of me began to shatter, to make room for so much more, a life that is more full and beautiful and heart-wrenching, for love. It's the day God began teaching me perseverance and endurance and really loving when it's hard.
It's the day that God showed me that being family & community means taking on the cares and concerns of others -- and letting them carry yours too. Because I'm not so good at that it turns out, letting other people help carry my cares, and recently I've had to do it more than I ever would have imagined or wanted. But that's what family does: carry each other. Family means listening and loving first, asking questions later. It means giving yourself, loving with abandon. Loving Well.
As I was reading my Bible yesterday, God highlighted this verse:
"And in this matter I give my judgment: this benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it. So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have."
2 Corinthians 8:10-11, ESV
The Lord loves. And He guides. And He's gentle and patient. But sometimes, like when Nehemiah "confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair," God has to be a little more obvious and give us what basically amounts to a good kick in the pants.
This week, God reminded me that He called me into this place, this community, to be a neighbor. He reminded me that these are the foundation days, that dreams are built here, that family is created here. He reminded me that He has led me here, that we started this community living thing two years ago, that He's walked this whole way with me.
But He also reminded me it's time to remember the past, build an altar to how He's walked with us and provided, and then to Journey On. To finish what we started. And to do it well.
You desired this. You started it. Now get on with it -- finish what you started.
So here's to dreams and foundations and hard and joy and love. Here's to carrying each other, to being neighbors and friends and family.
Here's to finishing what we start, to getting up, to journeying on.
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