One of the things that I love about church is that you find and encounter people at any number of points along the path.
I find this to be very encouraging.
For example, I have found great comfort during my season of grief to feel my brothers and sisters in Christ come up alongside me and share about a similar time of sorrow. These conversations along the way don’t take the pain away, of course. But the times of mutual sharing help me to feel less alone during this difficult time.
Being church means making a commitment to sharing our lives together. Some of these moments of communion occur by design. That is, we are given permission to self-disclose in our Sunday School classes, or around the table on Wednesday nights, or later during prayer times and Bible Study. To a lesser degree, our passing of the peace allows for us to bump into one another so that we can learn who we need to circle back around to and follow up with later in the week.
True, many of our encounters with one another at church are unscripted. They occur during a crisis, or while serving together on a project, or out in the parking lot after choir practice.
Whether serendipitous or providential in nature, these encounters remind us that the church is most powerful when it becomes a network of friends and neighbors, colleagues and elders, brothers and sisters who understand how life can be.
They know what it’s like to be in recovery.
They know what it’s like to be a caregiver to their children and to their parents; and all at the same time.
They know what it’s like to feel the heartbreak of miscarriage, the disappointment in failed marriages, the aching sense of loss that estrangement can bring.
They know joy, too. They know birth, reunion, and laughter.
But they also know fatigue and economic difficulty. They know about addiction and they know about failure. They have firsthand experience with tragedy and they know what horrors this life can wrought.
Through Christ, God gives us the gift of one another. Life is hard enough as it is. God certainly doesn’t want us to go through it alone. So God sends us travelers for the journey. Some are ahead of us, and some are behind us. Some, like us, are stuck in one place. Others are finishing up their journeys, while others are just getting started. We are all in this together and we can sense God’s strength when we allow our lives to intersect.
Now, finding places of intersection with one another doesn’t just happen. Being church together demands something of us. First off, it demands that we show up and that we are present with one another. Additionally, it requires that we look around to see other people, and to see where they are on the path. When we look beyond our own exhaustion, our own discontentment, and our own anxiety, we may just be surprised by what we see in others. We may just discover that those around us are not as different or unique as we have once thought. Sure, we’ll see things differently and we’ll naturally respond to life in any number of different ways. But, when we take the time to see one another, and to listen to one another, we’ll be more willing to extend and to receive grace.
These moments of epiphany, awareness, and revelation, are the salve that can soothe our wounds. For when we learn that we are not alone, we learn love. We learn persistence. We learn hope.
God is the genesis of our community and our relationships with one another. Because God came to dwell among us, He sought to demonstrate that love is best demonstrated in proximity and most fully revealed in understanding.
This past month, I’ve known and experienced grief differently than I ever have before. But our church—and our brothers and sisters in Christ—have taught me that I am not alone in this season because so many others have been through it themselves and know how it feels. My circumstances, while particular, are not unique. This realization helps me to know that this road has been walked once before and that it can be redemptive. The way forward looks hard, but it is not impossible. What’s most personal does tend to be what’s most universal.
And I know all this because I have learned it by traveling with you, my brothers and sisters in Christ. I’ve learned it because you’ve been willing to share your life, and your heart, with me. God has comforted me through you, and your stories. I’m grateful for this new awareness and I am convicted to be as faithful, vulnerable, and as trusting as you.