This is something that I have been wanting to touch on for a while now, but after what happened today, I knew I needed to finally share! So, I hope all of you are ready to hear my lil spill on what community means to me, how important it is to have that, and what it has looked like in my life.
For me, community is a group of people that come together. People who encourage and uplift one another, love each other, and push themselves to grow each day. I never knew how important it was to have a community until I hit a very rough stage in my life. At the time, it was my senior year of high school and I was going through a really hard breakup. I had been dating this guy for almost two years, wasn’t in a good place, and a lot of things happened between us that I don’t feel comfortable sharing online. But what I will say is that the breakup completely wrecked me. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, I kept missing school, calling into work, and just fell into the deepest state of depression. I felt so unworthy, lonely, and just dirty in every way. I just could not bring myself out of bed for the longest time and everything around me began to crumble. In this season, even though I couldn’t love myself, take care of myself, or truly be there for myself, everyone around me did. My family really stepped in to check on me every night and comfort me. Such as praying with me, scratching my back while watching a movie, and my favorite part… my little sister got into the habit of tucking me in and giving me a kiss on the forehead every night before bed. ( Years later, she still does this 🙂 ) So, not only my family came in to help me, but my church family as well. At the time, I was attending Emmanuel Lutheran Church, and Pastor Jay always knew how to help. We would have “chill” which was the name of our youth group gathering every Wednesday night and that was our time to really dig into the word and pour into each other. If I didn’t have this group of people, I would have been even more stuck. They completely picked me up and showed me where my help comes from and that I needed to stop looking down, but to look up to the heavens, and call upon the name of the Lord. And what was crazy for me is that, despite everything that I was going through, even in my worst moments, they still loved me. They still chose to walk through that messy part of my life with me and show me the love, support, and guidance that I desperately needed.
Secondly, I really want to focus on how important this is. When I switched churches and decided to start attending Riverside Church, I experienced community in another way. I began to find a deeper meaning to community… especially when I got more involved. Over a year ago, I became an intern along with two others volunteering at the church. We were at Riverside Church Tues.-Thurs. then on Sunday’s. While doing this, I was in my first semester of college and so many things began to change in my life. But, with all the craziness, that semester was my huge breakthrough with the Lord. Without that community, I wouldn’t have grown as close to God, wouldn’t have stepped out of my comfort zone, start walking the faith walk, or really started understanding what I was meant to do with my life. They pushed me to do what I thought was impossible (the World Race) and also, to not stay in the same place… Meaning, each day they wanted me to grow closer with the Lord and start LIVING for Him, not just believing in Him. This group always poured so much goodness into my heart and always lifted me up in prayer. Even when I was having a hard day, their first response was, “it’s okay, we are going to pray about this right now”. And I did not know how much that would mean to me. How much I needed that. So, I just really want to go deeper into that and speak to the people who feel like they don’t have a community right now. That don’t have people who they feel they can go to. Who also, don’t know what kind of community they should possibly be looking for. And with that, what I have learned is when you are not in a community who is leading you back to God when you start to stray away, you begin to become lost. BUT, when you DO have those people who are constantly praying for you, speaking truth over you that you are loved and important, and also speaking scripture over you on who God says you are and NOT what the world says about you, you begin to learn and grow so much. And the reason I am saying this is because I have been in friendships/relationships that did not lead me down the right path. I surrounded myself with people who didn’t believe in the same things as I did, were negative and bad influences for me, and who led me down a dark path. Which, like I mentioned earlier, led me to become lost. Lost on who I was and who I was called to be. Lost in what I was doing with my life when I knew the Lord had so much in store for me. And when I had those friendships/relationships, I began to pick up on what they were doing. I began to act like them and started to become these people even though that wasn’t what I wanted for myself… So, in this case, when you are trying to get connected to a community, I really want to encourage you to make sure that these are friends who will encourage, love, lead, and help you fix your eyes back on the Lord.
Lastly, I want to speak on what community has looked like for me in this new season of life! I have been living, learning, and LOVING on this new community in so many ways. Today marks 3 weeks on the race with the rest of my squad and I am absolutely in love with each and every person here. In the first week, my team of 6 girls dove right in and shared everything with one another. Every wall that we had up, anything that we were afraid to share or express to one another, we let out in the first week. We shared our testimonies, we shared all the emotions of what we had been going through in that moment, and literally anything you can think of, we have probably talked about it. These racers, are everything that I have been praying for. I have never felt more at home, more comfortable, safe, and supported by a group of people. And each day, we go through so much. With each devotion, each worship session, each lesson/teaching, each team time, we take in so much per day that God completely moves in us in a way we have never experienced before. So yeah, it’s emotional, it’s hard, but wow it is so incredible and such a blessing. And I wouldn’t have it any other way! Especially today. Our teaching today was called, “The Miraculous,” and basically, we talked about how God is a God of miracles. That “impossibilities are the norm. for God’s Kingdom”. So, we dive deeper into this topic and wow, it was heavy. Our speaker did such an amazing job on sharing so much wisdom and testimonies on how God healed the sick and how He worked in her life over the years. And after this, she gave people in the room an opportunity to be prayed over and healed. And when I tell you the Holy Spirit moved… and I have never seen my squad so vulnerable, so open, so loving. Just completely lifting each person up in powerful prayer, touching their hurt back, or leg. Believing that God would do it. And in this moment, I realized wow. This community, is nothing like I have seen before. That not only today, but every day, we help one another. We check up on each other, have those hard talks with each other, speak words of kindness and truth over each other, leading each other to what God has called us to do. And they never ever give up. Every single day they teach me how to lean on God in the hardest and most painful moments. And teach me things about myself that I didn’t even know. But what amazes me, is that God brought all these people together from all over the world, to do what He has called us to do. That He chose us to come together as a family and be the church. To be the community that teaches, loves, leads, and directs others back to Him. Just being a part of this has already transformed my life in so many ways, that I just wanted to share that with all of you and see how God applies that to your life as well.
So yeah! I know that was kind of all over the place and also, filled with a lot of stories, but I just really wanted to share my heart with all of you today on what God has taught me about community. I hope that this speaks life into you today and maybe you learned something from this short blog 🙂 I love all of you and thanks for following me along on this journey!
– hugs and lots of love all the way from GA! Jamie Schroeder
Verse to meditate on for the day:
John 15: 12-13, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
