Community is vital to the Christian walk. Church in essence is a body of believers. To be in fellowship requires an inherent amount of risk to lower your guard and be fully open with those around you. Both of those components are esoteric to me and have been an area where I fall painfully short in. Years of building walls around my heart and a front of facades don’t come down overnight. It’s easy to keep people at arms length and not subject yourself to possible damage.
C.S. Lewis said it well, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
Christ didn’t call us to an easy life. He never promised that we wouldn’t suffer but rather said in John 16:33 that we would have trouble in this life but He also promises to never leave us. My experience with community has been a messy one, the most recent fallout being at my church. Growing up I never had the right view of church. It was just a building and my mentality was “I didn’t need to go to church to be a Christian, I got Jesus, so I’ll be fine.” Granted that’s not a totally wrong statement but I completely missed the point. That thought forged a mindset of “I got this”, “I don’t need people”, which consequently, put me on an island. After fully surrendering my life to Christ a few years ago I have since then immersed myself in community to be left with more wounds and doubts. However not all has gone awry, some of the greatest gifts God has given me have been friendships and they have taught me a great deal. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10; Proverbs 17:17; Proverbs 27:17; and Proverbs 27:5-6 being a few scriptures that have been tangible wisdom in my life that I’ve experienced first hand.
In my pursuit to be an integrated part of the living organism of church I’ve been heavily gossiped about, ignored, rejected and lied to. Last spring left a huge hole in my heart and a bad taste in my mouth. I was pretty invested in my church, held many serving positions, spent most of my free time there and called the members my family. I had a falling out with a few people and right as summer approached I was no longer on the team at youth group. The youth pastor called it “differences” but there was so much more there that went unattended. I won’t justify my actions as many of the things I said out of hurt were wrong but so was the way the church responded to me. It was as if leadership were only concerned about behavior modification rather than the root cause of my pain. I was stripped of being a mentor, ripped away from all areas I formally served on and was told to get counseling, which they initially offered to help facilitate, but was never something I was open to at the time. At one point I was even suggested by a staff member that I should just “go to another church.” I was left distraught. Out of fear they thought it would be safer down one of their warriors than to keep her in the ranks. After some time away I humbled myself and reached out to them for the help they recommended only to find they had changed their minds and were no longer willing to help. You see at this time I applied to the Race and was told by admissions that I needed to go through several months of counseling before being placed on a team. This was something out of my scope financially and the idea of being open with a stranger had me running in the other direction. Yet I knew this was something God wanted, He said to me “Hannah do you trust Me? Will you pause and come with Me here so we can work on healing?” So I took on 3 jobs to work with God in the space He called me. In hindsight I’m really glad I let God into the areas I vigilantly guarded because in a year’s time He has brought much healing and wisdom to situations I once had no idea where to begin navigating.
In a year’s time I’ve grown apart from the church that once had my back. Relationships I previously cultivated were stolen by my presence no longer being welcomed. The lessons I’ve learned from all of this isn’t something I could learn from reading a book – even the bible. Some things must be experienced in life. Some pains must be walked through, trusting that it is all part of God’s plan for an ultimate good that we could never plan of our own accord. As I head closer to meeting my team and being assimilated into another community I’m aware I bring to table all my past pain and rejection. It’s my prayer to stand firm on His word when times come when I want to retreat and isolate myself and hide in the background. My prayer is to bring struggles into the light and confess pride so it no longer robs me of the intimacy to be had. To no longer assign a narrative to actions in which I have no context thus causing myself to be suspicious of people. To drop all offenses and to stop putting up fences from people closest to me. To ultimately stop pushing people away and allow them in when it’s most difficult to do so. As I pray these prayers for myself I also pray these for each of my teammates and I invite you to join me in prayer over the hearts of my team that we may achieve unity the way the Father intended.
Grace and peace,
Hannah
