7 Days of Thanksgiving - Day 5

This is kind of related to yesterday's post, but I'm not cheating! Over the last three years, I have become acutely aware of how important it is to be a part of a community...To surround yourself, whereever you are and however you do it, with a group of people who care about something bigger than themselves, who are committed to caring about you and "keeping it real," as it were.

Despite what we tell ourselves and what the flashy billboards screaming "rugged individualism" tell us, we are not meant to go through life alone. We're not meant to struggle, make decisions, celebrate, or love in isolation. We can tell ourselves we're okay on our own all we want, but that doesn't change the fact that we need each other to give a hug, lend a hand, call us out, or help others together.

I honestly believe that being a part of the Convergence community has changed the direction of my life, and it has had a profound impact on the direction of my life with Scott as the Girgishmelsons (you have to have the "h" in there to make it sound right). It definitely played a big part in my decision to pursue a career in social work, and it has been so amazing to see how real, authentic, and powerfully changing life with God and life with others can be. Yesterday, I spent the morning helping set up for "ReThread," the free clothing store we do several times a year for the kids in the neighborhood. Families come in, are greeted with a smile and maybe a hug, and they get paired up with a "co-shopper" who takes them around to find the sizes they need and helps them try on clothes just like they would in a real "store." Yesterday, we gave out over 160 coats (I had to leave shortly after the store opened, but it was awesome nonetheless) to kids who would have otherwise been cold this winter. But as always, it is one of the most amazing feelings to look around and see this group of people who love each other dearly extending that love just as authentically to others.

The point of this isn't to say how awesome Convergence is or how "selfless" or "giving" these people are; it's simply me saying how thankful I am to be part of such a real community in the midst of a lot of "fake." They've seen me happy, sad, vulnerable, excited, inspired, scared, and everything in between...and I know they'll be there through everything else. Yesterday I had a scary thought: "What if we hadn't met them? What if we had just gone through the last 3 years alone?" What if we hadn't met them? I wouldn't have a lot of the passion for justice and true life with God that I have now, and I definitely wouldn't have laughed as much. I've probably gotten weirder, too. I don't know what our lives would look like, but I know for sure it wouldn't be this. And that's DEFINITELY a good thing.