For a twenty-nine year old single woman community feels the same as it does when you’re fourteen. You go to school and wonder which group you’ll fit in on that day. You contemplate what’s wrong with you besides the less than clear complexion. And you wonder what it is you really are supposed to do with your life.
At least that’s how it was for me.
I didn’t fit in at the couple’s dinner party or my friend’s kid’s first birthday or even the women’s Bible study.
I read every self-help book trying to figure out what could possibly be so wrong that I wasn’t married already.
I looked for my “calling” incessantly since what I thought it would be turned out to not be so.
The bottom line? I was starved. Starved for community and starved for myself.
In the middle of my struggle to fit in as a single woman, there was one woman at my church who decided to come alongside me.
There are all types of community. Most are the types where all of the participants just “click”. You get each other. You share similar interests. You walk similar paths in life.
That was not the type of community I had with this woman, though.
She was about six years older than me, married, with two children living in a suburban-like house with a big backyard. She was living my dream.
But for some reason she invited me over for dinner.
Her husband traveled periodically, and when he did she would invite me to her house to have dinner with her and her two girls. Then after they went to bed we would watch a movie.
It was nothing earth-shattering. It was easy and simple and quick.
But for me it showed that I wasn’t different.
The woman saw me as a friend even though our worlds were light years apart. She served the deepest part of my soul – the part that needed to know that I was o.k.
She showed me community.
We like community that is easy. We like community when we’re all the same, living the same life, and have the same outcomes.
But is that the kind of community Jesus sought after? Or did He search for a community that was hard, uncomfortable, where He didn’t fit in, maybe even where He was misunderstood? Just so He could serve others who might need Him.
Over at Incourage this week we are discussing the question “What does community mean to you?” I will be the first to admit that I like community when it’s easy, and I don’t have to work at it.
But when I think about community I think about the woman who invited me over for dinner and a movie even if we may not have anything to talk about.
To me that is community. Serving someone else when it’s not easy.
Today’s Challenge: Find someone to serve in community even if it’s not easy.
Share with us. What does community mean to you?
Today I am linked up with: Incourage
And did you hear? 31 Days of Peace-Filled Singleness is now an eBook being released in October! Sign up for email updates so that you don’t miss any of the details including a chapter overview and a free chapter you can download!
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