Community vs. Isolation

This was written 3/28/09 at the Family Life Weekend to Remember Conference.

We went to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. I highly recommend it!

I was born into a family which produced a community because of the numbers...I am the oldest of 6 kids. Because of the economics of the day we always had lived in small spaces. It was sufficient for the family, but there definitely wasn't space to feel physically lonely. I felt isolated in this setting though. I felt emotionally isolated. I'm not sure why.

Dave was born into a family that was part of a community physically, emotionally, and spiritually. This intrigued me.

Community is important. Well, it is important to me. In community I feel safe. I can do more in community than what I can do alone. It is in community that my feelings of isolation disappear.

Community takes awhile to get moving sometimes. Once it does get moving the momentum is a greater force from the group than from me as an individual.

I like being part of a community that is like a mosaic made up of bits and pieces of pottery. Each piece has it's distinct pattern, texture and identity. Each piece could almost stand alone. But most mosaics are made up of broken pieces. The brokenness of each piece is safe in the community of the mosaic as all the pieces form a bigger design, pattern and identity.

Ephesians 3:14-21 For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with the power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than wall we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work with in us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.