I always say that if I could write “The Gospel According to Me,” it would say that following Jesus means you get onto the “easy life” escalator and never have any problems and your kids behave (and never throw tantrums in public) and everyone you love stays safe. But we all know that it’s through the down escalator times in our lives that we grow closer to Christ and learn about ourselves and experience God in a more meaningful way. I get that, but I still don’t like the down escalator.
But it was in a down escalator time that I really began to understand community. A year-and-a-half ago, when our little daughter was a week old, she caught a cold from her big brother and got really sick. She spent 2 weeks in the NICU at Children’s Hospital and it was the scariest, most exhausting, emotional two weeks of my life—juggling time in the hospital and with my son at home and trying to keep the family and home running.
In those early days of our hospital episode, when people asked me if they could help me, I know I put them off. I was fine. I could do this. But by a week into the whole experience, I had given up. When people started asking, “can I bring you dinner?” rather than giving a long-winded explanation of food allergies and take out is easy, I would simply respond with one word: yes. Can your son come over for a play date? Yes. Can I bring you lunch at the hospital? Yes. Can I put you on the prayer chain for my cousin’s friend’s sister’s church? Yes. It’s hard for me to let myself be needy but it was wonderfully comforting to feel the support of this church and our Christian community here. The combination of prayer support and food arriving on my doorstep every evening was amazing. And to let myself need others was hard but actually felt good.
I had been at our church as an adult with my own family for about 7 years before this incident happened. I had dropped off plenty of meals to others during that time but this was the first time that I had been a receiver. Receiving can be really hard. But it was in letting myself be a receiver, that I became so grateful for community.
So to me, community is being embedded in a place (when my son can walk into his Sunday school class and his friends shout his name)—being so embedded that people know when we’re on the down escalator and when we need the meals or the play dates or the prayers. I’m so thankful that my family is embedded here.
Romans 12: 10-13, Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.