i just love time with friends. probably more than i like time with anything else (except for time by myself, it digs me, i dig it, me time is good time). its tuedsay night i’m struggling with technology and feeling super compelled to tell ya a little bit about a thing called community.
community has been the word the Lord has been whispering to me lately. while i didn’t at first know why, this weekend i found out his reasonings pretty quickly. so i’m a leader in my churches youth ministry, i’ve been doing it for like, oh i don’t know, 5 years or something like that.. no big deal… i just thoroughly enjoy overstaying my welcome apparently. but seriously this ministry has been home to me for majority of my christian walk. i’ve grown, learned, taught, succeeded, failed, laughed, cried, (i think i’ve almost died a few times), conquered, and faced SO much because of this ministry. i wouldnt have become the blossomed little wildflower i am now with out it. we had our annual leadership retreat this last weekend and man was it good. & obviously you know its gonna be a good weekend when you spend like an hour and a half on the side of the road with your friends because of car troubles.
I’ve been hearing God whisper community for like a week and a half but while being pulled over on the shoulder of a highway with some of my dearest friends i actually felt His whisper. i sound crazy, partly because i am, but while i heard him whisper that simple word to me yet again, this time i felt it in my soul because i was surrounded by it. my friend grace’s car essentially quit on her while heading to the lake house where we were having the retreat…
our rescue turned into a 45 minute waiting game (slash photo opp), 
which then turned to a roadside shindig (because a truck full of our guy leaders came hurtling towards us )
which lead to frisbee’s, dancing,
& then another car of friends,
and it all just ended up being a thing. our frisbee went in the stand still traffic, cops radio’d each other about us. it’s fine. we’re fine
but as i looked around at the flaming hot mess in front of me i started to scratch the surface of what God was whispering to me. isn’t it so cool that our creator created us to know each other, to love each other and to just fully do life together??
“and let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another- and all the more as you see the day approaching.”
Hebrews 10:24-25
y’all He always wants to set us up for a win! i don’t know about you but that gets me PUMPED! knowing that God created us to do life together and love one another so that we can efficiently show the depths of the gospel is pretty. freaking. cool.
im not some person who knows what they’re talking about (obviously) but i just love catching on to what God is telling me and showing me. if i could do anything right its just tell you that getting a community of believers who wanna go on adventures with you, scare the crap out of you, encourage you, pray for you, study with you, love you, and eat copious amounts of food with you is SO important. i know for me i wouldn’t be where i am or who i am with out the community that surrounds me. whether thats the leadership team that I’m with 99.75% of the time or my friends that i don’t lead with or even go to church with. being known by someone other than our Father in heaven is just neat. even if its just 1 person, it could potentially change your life.
I just really want to encourage someone with this. I’m not trying to boast about how cool my friends are… because if i was i’d tell you that they’re cooler than the other side of the pillow (ba dum tss)
but my true intentions of this blog is to express that as believers, heck as human beings we’re created to do life together. even when i’ve spent 48 hours of non stop socializing and want to crawl into a hole somewhere with a really good rom-com book, i’m made to be loved by people. i’m made to be known and to know people in return. i enjoy my friends, i enjoy my family and church family, i enjoy my life because i always have someone looking out for me and cheering me on to a life full of love and light! my hope, dear friends, is that you understand that community is more than just people you meet at church or some kind of function, its where strangers become family, where people become seen, where you can be yourself and be loved anyways ( can i get a hallelujah?!) and that without a H E A L T H Y community surrounding us we’re just setting ourselves up to fail.
i pray you find your band of weirdos. i pray you find people who stop on the side of the road while waiting for AAA and turn it into a hangout session. i pray you find people you can cry in front of and express your worries, anxieties, and fears to. i pray you find people who see the real you, and dig what they’re seeing. i pray you find people who fill you with all the sunshine and happies.
*just some pics from the weekend of the goon gang*
Thanks for reading another post from a cRaZy woman, i hope this blog finds you shining, shimmering, and splendid~
xo-marge
