quick thought

God’s love sets me free to enter into community with other people—even when the community is a very limited one and is not the total communion that my heart desires. Only when I live in communion with God can I live in a community that is not perfect. Only then can I love the other person and create a space in which we might be quite distant or very close, but we can still allow something new to be born—a child, friendship, joy, community, a space where strangers and guests can be received.

- Henri Nouwen

How true. My failing in the past has been searching for that perfect group, those perfect friends, those perfect relationships. At one of my lower points in undergrad, I isolated myself from almost everyone in my life, because for one reason or another I saw some small difference as an inability to connect. But, as we've been talking about in OT class...perfect is static. It doesn't change. And truly, what I need is a community that is willing to grow and change with me, because I am still forming who I am and what I believe. I'm not fit to be a part of a perfect community. It's the community that embraces you with your faults and failures and vulnerabilities and offers the love of Christ...that is the community worth holding on to.

I'm learning to let down my walls and let people in...scary thought, I know. But for community to truly happen, you have show some vulnerability and openness. And acceptance of others in their flaws as well...because I haven't been doing a great job of that lately. But it's true - when you recognize that we are all sinners, that we are all flawed, and we are all covered by God's grace, it's easier to love people as Jesus called us to love them. Now if only I could transfer that to a few people in my life...