I wrote an article on Community on September 20th but would like to revisit that topic. Those of you who read my articles regularly or even sporadically over the last number of years realize some of the things I am very passionate about because I write about them often! I try to add new perspectives and thoughts but I am unapologetic in what I am passionate about and want others to know and understand.

(Quote from September article) “Community on any level and in whatever circumstances have its benefits and challenges but I specifically want to address the Christian community. Scripture tells us that they shall know us by our love one for another. Our testimony to a lost world is best demonstrated by our sacrificial love not only for the lost through humanitarian opportunities but our everyday lives as they see us really laying down our lives for one another.” “The Google dictionary defines communities as a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common; a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals’ I heard this simple definition years ago – ‘common unity. As believers who love God that should be one of our highest goals and desires.”

In April (11) I wrote about the Family. These two topics overlap. The natural family is a small community! “We use the word (family) most often when referring to individuals that are related through marriage and have made some kind of commitment to one another.” But as I wrote earlier, many groups of people come together for a particular purpose, affinity, or need. Call them family or community, life has put them together for a season and a reason.

I want to share a very unique story about community. I have mentioned in past articles that I have been helping to care for a young man in his 30s with significant disabilities. His Mom and brother and this young man were renting from me for a few years when his mom, in her mid-fifties had a fatal heart attack leaving the two disabled young men with only an aunt to help transition them. Neither one was capable of living totally on their own and I thought I could help one of the boys.  Over the last seven or eight years this young man has gone from never being able to look me (or anyone else) in the eyes or allow me (or anyone else) to touch him, to calling me (or coming to my door) sometimes numerous times a day – sometimes just to get/give a hug and say “I love you”. He is loved by many in our church and in our neighborhood and has continued to come out of his shell of rejection as well as thriving with a measure of normalcy even with his disabilities.

A few months ago I asked him if he would be willing to help me on a small project for the church without getting paid. This was a new concept for him. He always wanted to be paid for anything he did – like wash a car or rake a yard. I explained to him that sometimes it was good to just give without expecting to be rewarded. He did it with a good attitude. Just recently I felt like he was ready to get more understanding about serving without expectation of payment. I explained the concept of community and helped him to see that he had a loving community (church and neighbors) that was always giving to him and that he could be part of the community by sharing his time to help others. I was surprised when he agreed to help on another church project where he was with other young people giving his time to work with them.

Today as I was in the process of preparing to write this article, I asked him to finish out a very small part of the project we didn’t get finished last weekend. When I came back, I was going to pay him for doing it and he said no, that he wanted to do it for free. Then he told me about offering to help one of the kids in our neighborhood fix his bike so that he wouldn’t have to pay for the repair! I was so shocked and blessed – he is getting the understanding of “community” even though he can’t even pronounce the word nor does he have a lot of understanding of what it means. God is doing a miracle in his life that is slowly unfolding. He still has issues and does not understand a lot of things but “God” is now a part of his vocabulary. He loves to pray for people. He even participates at church if we are praying for someone and has also asked for prayer for himself (if he is in pain). He is part of the family and the community and not only is he benefiting from the relationships but we are all learning to love him and include him in our family/community. We want to treat him the way the Lord Jesus would treat him. His simple, childlike faith is so refreshing. He is watching all of us and learning how to be a family/community, which is something he did not have before his mom’s sudden death. (They lived very dysfunctional lives.)

I share all of this in detail because I am seeing the power of God’s love at work in real tangible ways. This young man could have become another statistic – he could have ended up homeless or institutionalized, neither one of which would have given him the quality of life that his family/community has given him. He is still a “work in progress” and I don’t always pass the love test when he reverts to his old ways which is happening less and less as he is integrated more and more into our community. It would have been an overwhelming responsibility to have done this by myself (which is probably why his mother had such a difficult time with both boys). But I have not had to do that. I have numerous others who may consistently do a particular task for him that I did myself for several years before the community embraced him. For example, one widowed man in his eighties in our church now does his laundry for him! I had taken him to the laundry mat for years and even taught him to do his laundry without me having to stay there with him when this kind man decided to take on this responsibility.

As I stated in one of the previous articles, I have lived in many different community-type situations and can’t imagine living any other way. We were not meant to do life alone or to figure out every challenge without the input of others. My life is richer and fuller because I am a part of the big family of God.