3 gifts in community

I start this post without really knowing what to write.  So, for some reason I opened my journal book not knowing where it’ll open… and there before me is what I wrote in March 2011…and oh how it relates to community!

Gifts in community is today’s hunt.  Community…companionship, unity with believers who have common faith, common hope, common love for Christ. 

Love this quote about community…a eucharistic community…a community with thanksgiving.  

“The Christian community is a community of the cross, for it has been brought into being by the cross, and the focus of its worship is the Lamb once slain, now glorified. So the community of the cross is a community of celebration, a eucharistic community, ceaselessly offering to God through Christ the sacrifice of our praise and thanksgiving. The Christian life is an unending festival. And the festival we keep, now that our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed for us, is a joyful celebration of his sacrifice, together with a spiritual feasting upon it.” - John Stott

The Christian community…an unending festival with each other and with the Lamb!  A joy-filled celebration of the gift of communion with each other and with the Lamb.

In my life I am blessed with communion.  Communion with Jesus. Communion with others.

I have communion with our small group who have been my life-giving, life-support and life-line for almost nine years.  We’ve lived life together. 

There’s the gift of communion with a special group of women where we plunge deep in the Word to discover treasures of His love and truth…and find treasure in praise and conversation with Christ together.

Then there’s communion with other believers at our church.  It’s a larger church, but we all have in common our connection through Christ, as the body of Christ.  Even though we’re all broken, messed up, have hidden fears and have secrets with self, we’re still in communion with one another because we all “press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ.” (Philippians 3:14)  We have communion together over bread and the cup of the Lamb and we have communion in fellowship with other believers…even ones we may not know on a personal basis…but as the body of Christ.

Even though we have these commonalities, there is nothing common about how God works in the lives of each of His children.

About a year and a half ago, March 2011, I was asked to be on a small group ministry committee. 

At the meeting, a couple of our church leaders shared visions, dreams and ideas of how we can help guide other small group leaders.  They asked us to pray about this ministry and for God to guide us so we can reach out even more to bring others in communion with fellow believers and seekers.

The leaders also asked us to pray about this committee becoming a small group of its own as well, and do a specific study they recommended to guide small group leaders.

My brain was trying to process it…my heart was wrestling with it.

Afterwards, I spoke with the two women who led the meeting and I was honest and said I didn’t know if I could do it.  It’s hard enough for me to share my story with people I do know!  The other people on the committee were just acquaintances!  One of the women reminded me of the times a few years earlier when I spoke at a Women of Worship about Moses and his battle with trusting God, and speaking at a marriage seminar, and leading a small class at church about recognizing “God Moments” in our lives… and she didn’t realize sharing my thoughts was is still an insecurity of mine.  I guess she thought I was over that.

She then, with a smile, told me that my insecurity of sharing “must really be a stronghold for you”.

Stronghold.

Strongholds can tear you down…

…or build you up.

As I wrote in my journal the next day, I asked myself, “Was that meeting, that God moment, “a stepping stone for something in the future? For God to use this opportunity to ‘practice’ sharing my thoughts?”

I continued to write in my journal about having the feeling of change, yet not knowing what that change was.

A couple of days later, while sitting in the sunroom, my holy grounds room, I actually took time to listen (which I admit is not easy!).  And He spoke.

“Trust Me.  Trust Me.  Write!  Just trust Me.  Be like Abraham and trust Me.”

Write?  Why?  Write what? 

I already journal.  So what’s the point?

Now move ahead ten months.    January 2012

I start my Joy Dare.  I started recording in my journal book joys I found in the refrigerator, in my purse, in my hand, someone I sat with, something yellow…the new journey had begun.

And then a couple of weeks into it, my husband encouraged me to create my own blog and start writing my joys there. 

Write!?  For others to read?!  And some acquaintances or strangers might read it?  Be more transparent?  Share my God moments?  Actually write…a dream that’s been balled up and stuffed down in my heart and covered with business, “maybe some day”s, worries, stress, but mostly lack of trust?

So, I took a deep breath, said a prayer, and started clicking and typing.  Maybe this is what God meant when He told me ten months ago to write.

I actually shared my dream with my life-giving, life-support and life-line girlfriends who encouraged me.

And I know, every day I totally have to have a strong hold on God and trust Him to keep my blog going. 

“The Lord is the stronghold of my life…of whom shall I be afraid?” Psalm 27:1

I’m so thankful for the communities in my life.  I’m also thankful that day when I was asked what my stronghold was.  And that question stretched me…and led me to listen.  That comment became a “God moment” in my life. 

So, all I just wrote brings me to today’s gifts: 

#472 community to stretch me; 

#473 community to speak Truth to me;      

#474 community to be my backbone…they are people who hold strong to our friendship, hold strong to believing and telling me that I can do it, and I’m blessed with the body of Christ, as a whole (even in the blogosphere!), surrounding me with a strong hold of faith in Jesus.

Even though I’m no where near being a “professional writer”, and this might make no sense, I know I write for the Audience of One.  But if anyone else who reads my blog is encouraged, it makes me smile, yet I want to take no credit for it. 

(I’m thankful for you having read this long post!)