I’m back from Haiti! It was wonderful and breathtaking and let me tell you, God is up to so much. I can’t wait to share more, but in mean time I’m beginning to post pictures to Instagram. I did post something the day after we returned, if you’d like to pop over and read.
Sharing “bonus” or “extra” stuff related to my new book is seriously so fun. I very much like free things, so passing free stuff on is just the best. If you’re just joining in, every Tuesday I share an excerpt, free printable, and short video about a particular chapter from Even If Not: Living, Loving, and Learning in the in Between.
You can catch up on all the posts here. If you want to grab a copy of the book and read along with these posts, it’s available over on Amazon. So fancy.
Even If Not // chapter four: loneliness & community
There are people all around us who are hurting, people who are longing for community to see them and say they are welcome just as they are.
Can we be gut-level honest here? Too often we share what’s happy and hide the hard. We’ll settle for okay and fine — for ourselves and for one another. Because if you’re fine, I’m fine. And if I’m fine, then don’t you feel like you have to be, too? What a mess.
How on earth can we welcome one another in if our lives appear so perfect that others feel uncomfortable, so together that everyone else feels like a mess, so “I’ve been there, done that” while they’re still finding their way through? It just doesn’t work like that. We’ve got to meet them in the thick of it. We’ve got to show them our mess and sit with them in theirs.
Real Christ-honoring community welcomes the mess and calls it a masterpiece because it’s a work-in-progress. Honest and beautiful community looks long and hard and says the story isn’t over. It sits in the in between instead of hanging back and staying quiet until the sun is shining again.
Will you allow me to speak as the Church for a moment? Allow me to enter in and ask you to let us into the real? We want the smiles and the happy. Oh, how we want you to be overflowing, joy brimming all up to the top of your cup. But when the bad days come, and they will, don’t cover up the hurting with the pleasant “I’m fine’s.” Don’t skip over the hurts. Let’s journey through them together. Let’s share the broken places, the redeemed places, and the in-process spaces, too. We want to see them because when we do, we see you. Open the door, even just a crack. We’re here.
Video & Free Print
“Community is worth fighting for.”
This print is available for exactly zero cents. Just subscribe to the blog {click here or on the image below} to receive the print above + eight others!
What a beautiful message! “It just doesn’t work like that. We’ve got to meet them in the thick of it. We’ve got to show them our mess and sit with them in theirs.” I absolutely agree with you. Community IS worth fighting for. Thanks for sharing with the Literacy Musing Mondays Linkup!
Beth @ Pages and Margins recently posted…Picture Books about Insects
Great message! I believe that God uses relationships within community for his redemptive purposes. So glad I found you through Literacy Musing Mondays! Keep on writing for the glory of God.
Many blessings!
Beckie
beckielindsey16.com
I agree with that… it’s definitely been true in my life. Thank you for stopping by!
Wow! I found this excerpt so profound! As I read your statement, “How on earth can we welcome one another in if our lives appear so perfect that others feel uncomfortable, so together that everyone else feels like a mess.” I realized that this happens too often.
I can tend to be an open book and fairly transparent, but there are those things, the very painful things, that I bury deep down and will say, “I’m fine.”
I watch my daughter and her friends, who are all new young moms and they seem to be trying to put their “best face forward” unintentionally making the others feel like they don’t measure up.
Honesty really is the best policy in all things, especially our feelings when it comes to community.
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Karen! I’m grateful that it impacted and encouraged you.
Yes! No one is fine. We need each other.
Yes. Yes.