As I said before, community does a great job of drawing out our crap. The longer you have in community, the better. I remember at one point on the World Race, at about three months, thinking, “Gosh, that last three months were great, but these guys are starting to annoy me.” And “I don’t really like so-and-so as much as I did at the beginning.” And “Do I really have to be around her for eight more months!” After a while of that, I gave up wishing people were different and trying to change them and started dealing with what I had in my control – myself.
Now I’m on the outside looking in and navigating the Novas team thru these experiences. We all went out to eat for pizza tonight. One last big celebration before the team leaves. I sat across from one of the girls and asked her what the team’s got planned for the following morning. The guy sitting next to her spatted something out that wasn’t true, probably to get attention, to which she rolled her eyes and said so.
There was some confusion about the team’s plan for the morning and eventually it came out that most of the team had decided they ought to have the place cleaned out by 10am. Well, the girl sitting across from me didn’t like that at all and she made it a point to let me and the others sitting next to her know.
“They decided that we have to be done with the cleaning by 10:00. I didn’t even know anything about it.”
I decided to challenge her, “So do something about it.”
“Do you know these p…” she caught herself. “It’s no use. I’ve tried before and I give up.”
“That’s community and I know it’s hard,” I said. “But you don’t get to give up on them.”
“What do you expect me to do! You want me to talk to them about it?”
“Yes I do. And stop complaining. That’s passive and it doesn’t solve anything.”
She looked down and sighed. I may have been too harsh on her. One of the girls sitting next to her moved closer and started to play with her hair. Girls do that to make each other feel loved.
I thought about it further as they moved into other conversations. This is the beauty (did I really just say that is beautiful?) of community. It’s the purifying of the bride of Christ. This girl had been with the others for eight months now and she is tempted daily to give up. In fact she said she did give up, but I know better.
At the end of the day, it’s just easier to put your head on the pillow and forget about dealing with the crap. You’ll wake up in the morning and probably forget all about it. But those little bits of negative emotion build on each other and eventually ruin relationships. One day you’ll look back at those people you loved and wonder what you ever saw in them. But you only see the worst in them because all along you’ve been training yourself in seeing that way.
Tomorrow morning I’ll ask her if she did talk with them and encourage her. I think just about any relationship can work with encouragement.
