Today I was thinking about what I have cherished most in the last 11 months. I wrote it in my journal, and I want everyone to know my heart for this family.
Beloved,
To have a community that authentically chases after the Lord with such intentionality and humility is something that I cherish dearly. This kind of family is so rare, and I’ve never experienced relationships like this. I treasure my brothers and sisters with all of my heart. I am thankful every day that God placed me into this family. To be in relation like this can only come from the Spirit.
My heart is heavy with the thought of saying goodbye to these people and this season. In that, I am so thankful for something worth mourning. I have cherished this season so dearly, and I will always look back on this season as one of my first glimpses at the Kingdom of God.
There is such a holy ache in my heart for you all. This longing for eternity and the kingdom that, for just a fraction of time, was satisfied. Satisfied in such a way that I now know the Kingdom can be brought through us, but still unsatisfied enough to keep going after it.
When I became a Christian, one of the things that pushed me there was this deep, vague longing for something I could not name. I think I now understand that a part of that longing was for all of you, and in a much broader picture, for eternal, holy relationships with others who had eternity living inside them. God is beautiful, and you are all so beautiful in your image of him. You are truly dwelling places of the Living God.
My soul longs for eternity, and it was briefly satisfied by eternity through you all.
God’s plan for restoring the world back to its innocence is the life of his Son, lived through us. Through his Spirit we are to be, as Paul says to the Philippians,”blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.”
It is only by the union with one another we have through Jesus, and our individual union with Jesus that we can see this come to life before us. It was Jesus’s prayer for us as he prayed to his Father in John 17 that we be one, just as he and the Father are one, and it is my prayer for us as J Squad as we near the end of our beginning.
I will always cherish you.
“Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
– Ephesians 5:1-2
