The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.
~ Frederick Buechner
As humans we seem so often to be in search of something. We want to discover ourselves, find our passion, our purpose, the meaning of life... The list goes on.
We often search for the thing that will define us in a revelation. We want something dramatic. The truth that I am learning is it is the ordinary everyday things that define us. They are where our passions can be found. They are the things that weave together to make up the fabric of our lives.
I have lived a lot my life out of boxes. It's like moving at some point and never truly unpacking. You need clothes? Go to this box. You need a plate? Oh it's in that box over there.
In my life that has looked something like this....
Church? Oh here's the outfit I wear for that.
Work? Oh here's the attitude and talents I pull out for that.
Play? Oh, Here the box I hide from everyone except a few people that will not judge me...
The boxes always remain separate and I run from place to place when I need something from one of them. If you have church, work and play all in the same day, well than you wear yourself out juggling the boxes!
I find myself stopping lately and asking the question...
What if life is not supposed to be lived in the boxes?
What happens if I start to believe the things that bring me great happiness are actually my way of meeting a deep hunger in the world around me?
When I start to ask those things I find myself volunteering for ReadUp at a local elementary school because of my deep love of books and reading. Because I see books as the door to endless possibilities celebrating with students as they perfect this skill becomes a place God calls me to.
One of the things I have struggled with the most over the past few months is the sense of call I feel to the community we live in. It is a call that becomes stronger each day. It's become even stronger as fall days and evenings have allowed our family walks to resume. As we walk I feel connected. You should in the community you live in, right?
But I've felt torn... I also go to church, meet up with our short circle (small group) and work on my volunteer plan for the church we attend and I feel connected. Only this connection is to a community 30 minutes away from the place I call home. In my world of boxes, I need to keep them separated. I need to distinguish the two.
I think my realization came this week as in posting a picture of my daughter on Instagram I found myself adapting the hashtag that gets used by our church, The Southeast Project or #wearesoutheast. As we wandered through our town, I found myself thinking about the meaning that particular hashtag carries with it.
We Are Southeast.
It defines the church as not a set location, but a body of people. This group of people happens to meet on the southeast side of Indianapolis. They work hard to connect with their community. They are teaching our family amazing things about what it means to connect in a meaningful way with your community. What it means to be invested in a school, relationships and why you should always rock out to the music being played! Because we are part of this and building our own relationship here #wearesoutheast.
As we wandered the streets of our town though, I found myself thing about the idea that while #wearesoutheast, we are also part of this community called Mooresville. I thought about how being Southeast means that we have a relationship with the elementary school in the district that the church meets to worship. It means crazy fun movie nights, Spring Flings and Easter Egg Hunts all on a community level. It means being a part of the life cycle of the community.
I found myself pondering the idea of #wearemooresville. I honestly haven't been much for hashtags in the past, but something about having a 2 year old is bringing out a more playful side of me that I put away in one of those boxes a long time ago. You can never truly love something you refuse to be part of. As long as you hold yourself back you will not get hurt, but you will not live either.
When you give your heart to something as C.S. Lewis so beautifully states:
To love at all is to be vulnerable.
Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.
As we walk around town I realize that 3 years ago as we became part of the community when we opted to go to the laundry mat to do our laundry. I gave my heart to the community we call home. I have had my heart broken as circumstances beyond our family's control meant God moved our place of worship 30 minutes away, out of the community I felt called to.
And then something beautiful happened...
I fell in love again. I fell in love with the amazing, broken, messed up people just like me that make up #wearesoutheast.
If our deep gladness is what God wants to use to speak to the world's deep hunger than God wants to use the things we love. The things we give our hearts to, the things that bring us joy have a deeper, holier purpose than we let ourselves believe.
The Southeast Project, the town of Mooresville, the Benedictine monastery I discovered this month, my ReadUp kids and even the coffee shop I love to visit so I can read in the corner are all things that I am realizing are places of deep gladness in my life. These are the places that prepare me to best meet the world's deep hunger with my gifts, talents and strengths.
So what do hashtags and boxes ultimately have to do with deep gladness?
Well... I am discovering it is a deep gladness to be part of #wearesoutheast, but I'm also discovering that as my love for Southeast grows my love for this quirky little town called Mooresville grows with it. Southeast gives me a tangible vision for what a life lived in community should look like. As I learn and live out that vision with #wearesoutheast I find myself more and more believing that #wearemooresville is true.
So if you would like to follow our family's adventures on becoming #wearemooresville and #wearesoutheast they will make their way to Instagram!
