Month 9//: Processing question #1 (week 2)
In what ways has your WR community (team and squad) lived out John 13:35? What has that looked like?
?“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
You know how almost every person who has a soul loves Rom-Coms? Whether secretly or in public we can’t seem to get enough of the genre. We spend years quoting lines from the classics and hoping that our dream partner will pursue us with us much zeal and wit as Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, or Adam Sandler. We laugh and bond over the one-line zingers with our friends and blush as we make eye contact with that random guy walking past the coffee shop window. Rom-coms inspire a giddy kind of love that makes your heart pick up while still persuading you to pursue, and never settle, for anything less than passionate love. Passionate love-thats what I’ve found in these sisters that I’ve lived with over the last eight months and some days. Now I know that the deeply romantic plot line of rom-coms isn’t exactly the tone of my friendship with my team but the scenes in those movies that make you fall in love with the characters, well I’ve lived that life over the last year with my team. They have pursued me with zeal and wit in a way I previously couldn’t have imagined in friendship. We have been through everything together; sickness and health, grief and joy, aimlessness and purpose. Similar to those in a marriage, we have learned to love each other through the deepest depths and the most refining of trials. We’ve learned what it means to celebrate victories with one another of all shapes and sizes. From getting accepted to secondary programs and schools to birthdays, holidays, and learning how to cook simple dishes, we’ve all been there to celebrate with one another. And when I read the gospel in Acts as it describes the church being of one accord, one in body and one in heart, I see that ideal stamped clearly on my team. We share everything with one another emotionally and physically whenever there is need. We love each other in incomprehensible amounts, accepting all of the quirks, flaws, and gifts that each of us possess as individual brides of Christ. This year, loving my team and being loved by team has looked like a rom-com that ended in marriage. We are also the bride of Christ collectively and as we joined together as one, and fell more deeply in love with our Savior, our souls learned our roles as parts of the body within our team and the fruit of that was love and peace and blessing and favor. I never knew that the danger of falling in love with Jesus would also encompass falling intensely in love with his church, his tabernacle of believers, my sisters and his brides. These are relationships I’ll cherish into eternity and I could never express my complete gratitude for this amazing adventure of falling in love and finding joy in all my days with my best friends.
