As I walked down her driveway, a little embarrassed to open the steel door to my crumb-caked, mud-crusted vehicle, I turned back to her half-hoping she didn’t notice the mess in the car, and said, “I had a really great time. Why haven’t we done this before?”
Neither of us had the answer.
We’ve known each other for a few years, live just a few minutes away from each other, and our lives following similar paths as wives and homeschool mamas, who are still learning what it means to follow Christ and want to raise children who desire to do the same. Yet, it was over a year since we had seen each other face-to-face and even longer since we had a real conversation.
We connected again through a Facebook message when she asked if I’d be interested in doing an (in)RL meet-up together, and she graciously offered her home. We met in her kitchen to plan for the meet-up. We had our computers open, watching the preview videos and reading all the helpful hosting ideas, taking notes, and planning brunch for our guests.
And it didn’t long for our conversation to change from painted mason jars filled with flowers, to how disappointment stings, how betrayal can break us, how words and women can wound us, and what we truly want is a safe place to be real, open up, be vulnerable without fear of judgement and have God show up in that place.
That’s what (in)RL is all about, isn’t it?
“Is community easier online?” she asked a good question.
“Somehow, online community has taught me what real community is, and how much I needed it,” I replied.
Last year, I watched (in)RL online, and I shared with her how I witnessed from before a back-lit screen what it meant to be real in community. And when I listened to heartbreakingly, beautiful stories shared from women sharing genuinely, vulnerably their stories of brokenness, heartache, redemption, and hope — it changed me. I didn’t know it was possible. I didn’t know it was okay to be “un-fine.”
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This was new to me, as I was used to hiding. When I was young, I would find creative hiding places. Not for hide-and-seek. Just for me to hide. One afternoon, as a child, I climbed into the unfinished attic in our garage, seeking a safe place to hide from my unsafe world. That day, I thought I’d stay forever — hiding. Stay until someone sought for me, which I secretly wanted. No one did.
As an adult I still hid. I learned to hide my real-self, until I couldn’t even find her. I continued a lifelong practice of concealment, isolation and withdrawal. I shielded my pain well, though it didn’t keep me from hurting inside. It only kept me from being healed.
“The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed, secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from.”
–Frederick Buechner
I thought I’d stay forever — hiding. Hiding behind walls of steel to protect me from more pain. And staying hid until someone cared enough to seek and accept the real-me, which I desperately wanted.
And I learned that day, real community is a safe place where we share our stories, feast on them, laugh together and also weep together. I cried as I watched. I wept as I listened. My defenses of steel, hiding the broken mess I really was, melted away. I learned I didn’t have to hide. I realized how much I craved that kind of community. Community is what I needed. Though I’m not always good at it.
Real community where we are able to reveal to one another what our failings are. And say that we do not have it all together, though we are seeking God through it all. And, even sometimes, don’t know how to do that. And where our lives are celebrated, even though we are bare and blemished and broken. And where it’s okay, because we made whole through of Christ.
Even in the pain, the hurt, the ridicule, the backbiting and the gossip, and the fear of being hurt again, the longing remains to connect in a genuine way to a sister in Christ. There remains a yearning, a deep desire to be accepted, sincerely liked, loved and joined in a pure, way to one another in authentic community. It’s because community is part of God’s plan of redemption for us. It’s what He uses to heal us, many times. We weren’t created to be alone. We are better together. We are His Body and we are One, though on this side of eternity, we are broken and imperfect. Through Him, we can find hope and healing — together.
And I am not the only one who has a story.
Click here to read other brave writer’s stories about community, and learn more about (in)RL. Click here to register FREE for (in)RL happening April 26-27th. Click here to find a meet-up in your area and join with other beautiful, broken women who need community. And click here for the (in)couragers (in)RL video trailer I’m privileged to be a part of.
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