Community

I struggled to come up with a devotion ‘worth’ sharing with you ladies since the last meeting.  I’m not one to remember bible verses off the top of my head (though I try), I don't have many ‘christian’ songs in my music iTunes account, and to be honest my usually confident frame of mine melts into mush when I have to share a devotion or take about what I think a verse means.  So that being said this devotion came out of a 3pm shower I took today.  I was thinking maybe I should share something poignant to the family crisis we’ve been having over the last 5 months, or the health struggle I’ve been going through for the past two years, or even more recently the sad, and for me, completely imaginable event that unfolded in Florida this past week.  As I thought one word kept popping into my mind, community.  Every where there has been tragedy or struggle in my life, it has also been coupled with community.  When I was in middle school my dad was very sick, stage 3 testicular cancer-my community became my mom and my brothers.  And to this day we all have an oddly close rivaling Lorelei and Rory Gilmore relationships.  When I was in HS before school shooting were in the news every other week, my high school was shot up by a fellow classmate-my community became the class of 2001.  When I was in college and struggling to find a place where I fit, struggling to find a roommate much less friends-wondering why I was even alive and was it really all worth it, and at one point convincing myself it wasn’t-Megan Cearns moved in with me and not one month later we were pledging (to the Alpha Chapter) a Christian sorority.  SAO was my community.  I had the friends and feeling Gods purpose again for my life I was still struggling to hold a GPA higher than 1.5, trying every major there was I ended up in the Art Department classically Erin, crying to Richard Lou, a huge chicano man with a pony tail halfway down his back, the head of the art department.  I was accepted into the art program and once again found my community.  And most recently as a new homeschool mom who has 3 other part time jobs-I’m so thankful for technology because through technology I once again have found community.

I feel community is so vital to the survival of our faith.  Over and over we see proof of this in the word, as I was even looking up verses I was overwhelmed by how much community is either specifically mentioned or implied.

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.  ECCLESIASTES 4:12

For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."
Matthew 18:20

And Jesus spent the last night here on earth, doing a few things, but one was a dinner with his community.

As we do these roles on the national board, i know its been on my mind in trying to navigate the future alumnae and talked with Elizabeth about sisters who have decided to de-sister, I’m over come with questions of ‘why stay?’  Why this community?  I think we need to always remember we are a community, we can be that community for women who are feeling lost and alone and at the end.  We are a community with women who are all trying our hardest to chase after our King.  We can be that community who is there for women who are at their lowest points.  Through a servants heart we can share that hope of grace, forgiveness, and love.

Written by: Erin Watts-Evans