Community and Communing

I've been thinking a lot about community again.  I work like this: I crave it.  I seek it.  I find it. I live it. Pause.  Repeat.  Currently, my community is cultivating growth in deep recesses of my heart.

And that is the story of my life.  And it has been such a good story to date.  A full one.  Pages inked with many faces and descriptive memories of our times spent together. Time well spent in a world that is fast paced and busy, busy, busy.  Long gone are those days of broken friendships, brought about by my own hand.  God has forgiven and rebuilt and refined me to know how to be a better friend, an intentional one. And it is good.

Except when it's not because sometimes it isn't.  Not all friends are meant to be a part of your village. They aren't all your people.  They are people who, for whatever reason, walk the walk with you for a while and then it's time to move them out because they take.  They question.  They belittle. They plot. They gossip. They are toxic.  No matter what you do, it will never be good enough or be enough.  And it is time.  And there is nothing that you need to feel badly about, nothing to blame yourself over; they were simply in your life for a season and the season has changed.

For someone like myself, who gives of my heart, who trusts easily and who genuinely tries to be nice to everyone. . .letting go of someone, regardless of the fact she is not good for me is hard. It's hard, but necessary and if I've learned anything by being faithful in His word, I can do hard things.  So can you.
And God has a way of working everything out for GOOD. . .(Romans 8:28)