Community

I love community. I love that we were created for community. I love that God Himself, in the trinity, is community.

This is something I talk a lot about during my one-on-one meetings with students. God gives us each our own lives and stories. We are each our own person. This is one of the reasons that one of the presuppositions of RUF is "the individual: God has created every person and no two people are alike." And yet, despite our own unique personality and circumstances, we are able to relate to one another in community.

Despite this community, however, I often feel as if no one really understand me. While this may be somewhat attributed to the fact that I have grown up in an age of postmodernism (Kafka's Metamorphosis anyone?) it is also a lie that I am tempted to believe. Sometimes I would love to believe that God has put me in a unique place in which no one can understand me, because then I can give up and stop trying to fix my problems.

Community is just the ticket, however, to understanding one another and encouraging each other with the Gospel. It is what makes it possible for the individual, in their own circumstance, to love and feel loved. Jesus himself loved people as an individual. He was able to understand people on a personal level, as we also are able to do. John 4 and the story of the Woman at the Well is an example of Jesus' ministry to specific people. We (the interns) were pointed to this story at staff training when we were talking about focusing on "the individual."

In the four weeks that I have been an intern, I can already tell that this is a big topic of conversation for girls. In moments of loneliness, frustration, and despair we are tempted to believe that no one gets us and it is hopeless (seriously- God has created me, the one person who CANNOT be understood by ANYONE). Community is here, however, to share our own experiences and to share the Gospel.

I love that I can encourage girls with this truth. I love that I am different than each of these girls, and yet we can encourage one another. I love that I can hear their own individual stories and yet point them to the story which gives hope and love.