thankfulness : community

Freely you have received, freely give.

Matthew 10:8

I have never bought into the concept of community until very recently. A rather negative experience with it in college put the last nail in the coffin on my view of whether or not community -- a living, breathing group of people who care about one another and give their lives away for one another -- could be something real, or at least something I experience.

Over the past year or so the Lord has been slowly moving, changing my perspective, allowing me to forgive and move past hurt into the beauty of what giving life away and living life with others can be like.

Last weekend in the Outer Banks I was brought to tears hearing this group of high school students sing a song that I completely associate with my senior year of high school. That year was the first time that my relationship with God moved from outside the confines of a building and into the world. It was in the context of relationships with middle school girls from church. Girls from different life circumstances, girls who didn't know or care about who Jesus is and girls who taught me more of the Lord than I could've imagined as a senior in high school. At the end of a weekend retreat I remember looking around and seeing this group of middle school students singing their hearts out and thinking "this is it, this is what I want my life to be about." I was tired from staying up all night, it had snowed and I had been pelted with snowballs. But in the midst of that I thought this is what I want to be about -- loving the people around me, walking through life with them and together wrestling with who God is and what that means right here and right now.

I am so grateful for that opportunity. So grateful that Adam, the head of student ministry at our church, would trust me to step into that leadership opportunity as a stuck up Christian school kid who thought she understood so much, but in reality had missed the point.

Tonight I talked to the group of high school kids who were sitting in the same place where I spent so many a Sunday night. I got to tell them that life, real Life, the kind that just makes us stop and say "This is it! This is what life is all about," is essentially a life that is given away. A life that knows the gift of grace, the gift of love freely given and cannot help but let that same love flow through it.

I had the chance to spend this past week reflecting and gathering thoughts for the talk. My heart was moved to profound gratefulness. I am so grateful that the Lord refused to let me keep my small understanding of who he is and instead brought me into the understanding that my life, somehow in some small way, is relevant and usable in his work in the world. And so thankful that he has slowly taught me that real Life is found in giving life away. He is still working through my cynicism, reminding me again and again that he is not keeping score, that he is not angry, that my failures and inabilities don't endlessly frustrate him. And instead I am learning to listen to the God that says, "Freely you have received, freely give." Freely. I am starting to understand the freedom that comes in Christ, the glorious freedom of grace and the way that it overflows into giving. There is no foot stomping from heaven, no acting out of guilt or obligation, just infinite freedom.

What a wonderful season of life this is. It was so humbling to stop and note the ways that the Lord has been teaching me more of his heart over the past 5 years. What a comfort to know that that same God continues to reveal himself to high school students through that same song on high school retreats and continues to reveal himself to me. The unexpected twist in this is that almost without knowing my views of community have been reworked and redeemed. In the midst of coming back to Virginia Beach and getting involved again in student ministries a group of people has come together and tonight after I spoke I almost had to chuckle to myself realizing that community was staring me right in face, protesting that it is possible to care for and give our lives away for one another. So today's thank you is to Bling Branch and Adam and for the people that have refused to let my own cynicism get in the way of knowing community and knowing who the Lord is.