It would be so much easier if no one disagreed with me.
If no one challenged me; if no one pushed my buttons.
Life would be restful and calmer if no one questioned what I thought or told me they thought something different. If people always saw my side, always shared my opinions, always got where I was coming from.
If only I never felt misunderstood or rubbed the wrong way.
If I felt confident and right all the time maybe I would sleep more.
Community can be uncomfortable.
It can chafe and irritate and misunderstand even our best intentions.
It will irk you and stretch you and some days you will be tempted to run and hide and whisper to yourself, “I’d be a great Christian if it weren’t for other people always messing it up.”
Community will chip away parts of ourselves that we’d grown fond of. It will rub up against our quirks and question our beliefs. It will wriggle down into our doubts and bring them to light.
Community will mold us, and we will feel it.
Because we’re supposed to.
As iron sharpens iron,
so a friend sharpens a friend.Wounds from a sincere friend
are better than many kisses from an enemy.
The minute we open our doors, our laptops, our comment boxes, our homes, our churches, our celebrations to others we open our hearts wide up right along side. People will come in and traipse great, big, muddy, footprints all over the spaces and places we hold sacred.
And if we want real community we must sacrifice.
We must sacrifice the pretty perceptions we’ve built of others and ourselves. We must sacrifice our pedestals, our distance and our time. We must sacrifice our long lists of wants, demands, expectations. We must lay them down and be willing to have them completely upended. Crumpled. Re-arranged. Messed up.
If it is real, community is usually untidy.
If it is more than an exchange of “fine” community starts to get that lived in look. Crumbs and stray socks and leftovers you forgot to put back into the fridge. And sometimes it feels awkward until one afternoon you find that the messy is starting to blend into the comfortable. And in the midst of sacrificing what we wanted out of community we discover what God was planning for us.
This unwrapped beauty.
This ordinary wonder.
This pretzel of imperfect.
This sweet understanding.
::
Lisa Jo, this totally resonated with me. I have often said jokingly that being a ‘good’ Christian was easy until I became a step-mom. Your post today prompted a shift in my thinking just a bit…YES I am pushed, but my blended family is the community that the Lord has me in and I have a responsibility to Him to make it work like Jesus would. To love like Jesus would-despite of whether it’s comfortable or not. THANK YOU for that paradigm shift! I needed it :)
So many blessings,
Sherri Ohler
God has been speaking to me about this lately. My initial comment on this was very long, so I deleted it and realized I just needed to work through my own blog post about it, so I’m off to do that! That you for the verses – I really need to meditate on them today.
Blessings to you,
Jennifer
Your writing is so thought provoking. Simple to read, moving and so true. I love that you pull at my inner chords. I don’t always comment as often as I should but I sure love to read it! Thank you for your honesty!
This is so true. It’s easy to be a disciple in my quiet corner of the world. It gets messy and risky out there among community. And what you said about sacrificing pretty perceptions of me and others, that is where the rubber meets the road for me. Sometimes I just want to maintain my view of pretty and leave it at that.
Such honesty and truth to this. Oh, how easy it would be to hide in a box & be a “perfect” Christian. :) Guess God knew we needed each other to refine, purity, and shape one another to His Image. Your post makes me appreciate those hot and sometimes painful irons in my life that reveal the “ugly” even we so often miss about ourselves! Blessings this day, dear friend. Jen
Oh how I have longed for that “community”, the friend who would tell me like it is, who would risk herself to “be messy”, who would be strong enough, bold enough to irk, irritate, chafe and contradict me. I long to be challenged. I am a “challenger.” A Bold Warrior. Instead, I have found that people don’t have time or desire for that kind of realness, that kind of a relationship. I am a mom of many monkeys. I don’t have time for fakeness, for small talk. I need people who also desire real relationship, who are willing to just be real, who don’t feel the need to put on makeup and clean their house for me. To put on fronts. Finding those kinds of people is a treasure, a rarity. I have been without true friends for a long, long, long time. Count your (irritated) blessings.
(p.s. After almost two decades of lonliness, seeing friends come and go, meeting people who aren’t really interested in that level of friendship, I think God has finally sent 2 gals my way. IN my small town. It’s just beginning, but I can see a future. *and the halleluja chorus begins*)
This is something I’m struggling with right now. This is the longest I’ve been part of the same community—which means people are getting to know me. And that means they’re willing to point out my shortcomings (of which I didn’t know I had so many). I thought it was going to feel better than this! http://www.thelazychristian.com/2012/03/seven-year-itch.html
Wow, I couldn’t agree more! I grew up in a big church with lots of surface relationships and was so excited to discover what it’s like to be real and get to know other people in a deep way.This has been a delighful journey as we are blessed with a great likeminded community of friends to grow with. I was surprised over time though, how when we’re all being real, some of what we see is far from pretty and it takes a greater level of unconditional love than what I had expected. Also, when other people are honest and real with me about what they think of me, it can hurt. I hadn’t thought about both sides of honesty! It has been so worth the effort and the pain though, and I will keep on living open and transparent. Thankfully, I have a circle of really safe friends who keep me thinking being real is a good idea! I wonder how wide a circle you can be that honest with?? You, Lisa Jo have so inspired me for being so honest to as many people as want to read your blog. I am still learning that kind of honesty.
I wasn’t going to switch ‘you’ on today. About the time I think I’ve got an angle to hide from God, He just finds another way to get me! (:
I have spent the better part of this week weeping, gnashing my teeth figuratively about this very topic. Spending yesterday on some: cold, damp, drizzling, trails I yelled out to God;
“Enough!” and the dogs put their two cents worth in, by taking off on me.
Determined, once the dogs reluctantly got around to coming back to me, to take every thought captive, and by His strength get a new attitude He nudged me. Well, no, hit me over the head with a two by four.
My geriatric dog Libby suddenly dashed up and around a very large Oak tree. Unlike her normal barks and snarls she painfully raised herself up onto her front legs and peered into the hallowed center. Dropping to the ground she whined.
Ticked off, I wasn’t too keen on giving in to Libby’s demands for attention. Gracie, the black lab left my side and joined Libby. Her hazel nut brown eyes stared back me.
“Fine! But I don’t SEE anything”
Halfheartedly I closed the distance between me and the dogs. I circled the tree and said “you see there’s nothing here” and then saw something for a split second.
Three brand baby racoon’s peered anxiously up and through the crack of the tree trunk.
“Some people” I said out loud to the dogs “think these cute baby’s are vermin”
“You think some people are too”, whispered something inside of me.
“But…. but… you know how I’ve been hurt. How can I keep going back for more. When I see YOUR Spirit is being quenched? And….”
Glasses fogging up, and with the rain and tears smearing down and across my face, I started back to the car.
“Can you trust me for today?”
I thought for a moment and answered the Spirit’s question. “Okay.”
“Leave me with tomorrow. Trust me for all the rest of the stuff.”
As I desperately tried to towel off my two muddy dogs, once I was back home, a word popped into my head.
“Discernment.” I waited for a moment before I took off my hiking boots and opened the door. “Is used for intercession not criticism.”
“Yes, Lord, believing and trusting that You are enough for today.
Wow, Ramona – just wow. What a day and a walk and a God. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.
I always find it so much easier when people are violently agreeing with me instead of gently pointing out my flaws. But some of my greatest friendship are ones in which I know they’ll lovingly correct me.
So very true, so very close to my home. Is there anyone in the world who has ever been in community, that hasn’t run into a friendship Knot that was really a badly tangled mess? Jumping into a hole and pulling in after us is always my knee jerk reaction.
I believe God has created us for community, first with Him and then with others. He knows how to either cut the thing loose, or patiently comb it smooth.
And you only began one sentence with the word, AND!
P.S. And, is an inclusive word bringing two things together…Maybe it should be used more…
I edited out several other “ands” earlier – I have an addiction :)
I have often thought many of these same things but about a slightly different subject: marriage! I suppose the Lord puts us with people (whether in our own homes or even in an virtual community) to slowly perfect us. Thanks. Have a great day!
The pretzel of imperfect…love that!
absolutely love. thank you.
You made me smile with “the pretzel of imperfect”…. I think that is why in real community we need grace and forgiveness all around and in between people.
I’m always learning more of this. Community IS better. Relationship IS God’s nature. It is a lot easier with the “easy” ones though. :) But I’m not one of those so who am I kidding? I can be such a stinker. Ha!
Just read a news article on a NY school banning controversial words on tests like “dinosaur, religion, Christmas, Halloween…” because it might cause emotional reactions in children. Sheesh, no wonder we can’t disagree graciously as adults.
Thanks for this reminder. I’m sharing with all my friends.
This post couldn’t have come at a better time. I have just accepted the MOPS coordinator position in my community here and I am scared to death because I know it will be what you say “untidy”. I have a been battling low self-esteem (a form of pride) for years. It is always nerve racking when being even constructively criticized, but it is needed. Someone has to stand up to us…to our tantrums, bad habits, etc.
THANK YOU for posting my post from last week’s FMF…that was so kind of you. I hope it spoke what my heart is feeling and spoke to others as well. I am fairly new to the blog world…going on close to two years…so I never know how I am doing.
May God bless you this weekend with lots of community and sleep. ;)
Lovely reminder.
A friend sent me this to read, and it couldn’t be more timely. My own pretzel of imperfection life has caused me to shy away from a lot of deep, meaningful relationships. It’s hard to just let go of myself and be vulnerable and throw myself into community. I was so content with the close friends that I had, that knew me, that “got” me. I didn’t have to explain to them my issues, why I was the way I was, because they were there through the growing up. But life changes quickly and I found myself without those people so close to me anymore. I closed up, because starting all over was so risky. But now, I’m willing to make that sacrfice. I’m excited for where God is going to take me and being a part of His plan. Finally, I see how much I NEED community, with all it’s upside down sides. :) Thank you!
I was just talking to my daughters (10 and 8) about this very thing after one of them was sighing about the other. We need each other. It would be “easier” without others to rub us the wrong way and bring out the worst in us, but it would be lonely, and who would then also bring out the best in us?
oh, so true. community does require sacrifice. my husband and i live and work in a ywam community. i love it. and yet there are some days when i wish that i didn’t have to “share” my life with so many others… or have them “share” with me. i crave space and independence and autonomy. and yet, when i’m struggling with life how i appreciate my little community… and need it. isn’t that just human of us? like it when it suits… disregard it when it doesn’t. over all though, i’m so grateful and so value the community that i’m a part of. i know i’d be lost and lonely without it. God is so gracious to us to allow us what we need, even if we don’t always want it… or recognize our need for it.