H7 Story: "The Beautiful Truth About Community"
By Peyton Garland
Community. I wasn’t supposed to like the word, let alone indulge its meaning. On paper, the clinical sort, “church trauma” and “spiritual abuse” labeled me likely to never attend church again. In fact, my therapist was “surprised that [I] still go to church.”
Psychological abuse and twisted theological manipulation take their toll, especially when you have a debilitating mental battle against Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. By every earthly standard, I wasn’t supposed to feel safe enough inside the four walls of a steepled building to ever consider it a home, a haven, for me and my family. I certainly wasn’t supposed to trust the people inside those walls enough to invite them into my heart and home, to let them see my beautiful, messy marriage, to let them love on my son.
But when your husband says he believes he should step up and become a Life Group leader, who are you to trample on God moving in his life? You encourage his calling and reserve the questions and hesitancy for a time (or ten) when it’s just you and God (and your toddler, because who gets time alone when their two-year-old boy has discovered the joys of slinging sticks and yanking off his diapers?).
Several months following that first conversation with Josh, on a cold February day, he and I were running late to our first Life Group meeting… at our house. It took forever for the pizza folks to complete our order, and you can only hightail it home so quickly on those windy Camp Creek roads. Several people, some strangers, were kindly waving from our porch, hoping to get inside and escape the bitter weather. That’s how this Life Group endeavor started, but it would be a moral sin not to share how it’s going.
What started as three couples has beautifully grown into nine. It’s young husbands and dads meeting up for coffee just to check in. It’s young wives, mamas, and babies getting together for outdoor adventures, coffee, and craft parties. It’s group texts at one in the morning when someone needs prayer, and baby showers at two in the afternoon to celebrate the next little bundle who will join the crew.
It’s someone letting you borrow their car while yours is out of commision and your husband is gone on a work trip all weekend.
It’s someone driving thirty minutes one way to bring you a gallon of homemade organic raspberry tea because they know Mom Shame has you in the mental trenches.
It’s someone saying, “Do you mind if your kiddo has that?” Or “I’ll look after your baby like they’re my own.” And it’s believing them when they say those things.
It’s countless shoes scattered on your front porch, as so many hearts and minds and lives are gathered inside, laughing with, connecting with, and living, truly living, among one another with God’s Word at the helm.
It’s caring that someone is sick, caring that someone’s struggling with family troubles, caring that someone is wrestling with God, and caring that others are truly known and loved as best as our flawed hearts can know and love other flawed hearts.
It’s truth. It’s beauty. It’s the beautiful truth that community, even when made up of tired husbands and dads, overthinking wives and mamas, and tornado toddlers and babbling babies, is worth every imperfect effort.
Psychological abuse and twisted theological manipulation take their toll, especially when you have a debilitating mental battle against Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. By every earthly standard, I wasn’t supposed to feel safe enough inside the four walls of a steepled building to ever consider it a home, a haven, for me and my family. I certainly wasn’t supposed to trust the people inside those walls enough to invite them into my heart and home, to let them see my beautiful, messy marriage, to let them love on my son.
But when your husband says he believes he should step up and become a Life Group leader, who are you to trample on God moving in his life? You encourage his calling and reserve the questions and hesitancy for a time (or ten) when it’s just you and God (and your toddler, because who gets time alone when their two-year-old boy has discovered the joys of slinging sticks and yanking off his diapers?).
Several months following that first conversation with Josh, on a cold February day, he and I were running late to our first Life Group meeting… at our house. It took forever for the pizza folks to complete our order, and you can only hightail it home so quickly on those windy Camp Creek roads. Several people, some strangers, were kindly waving from our porch, hoping to get inside and escape the bitter weather. That’s how this Life Group endeavor started, but it would be a moral sin not to share how it’s going.
What started as three couples has beautifully grown into nine. It’s young husbands and dads meeting up for coffee just to check in. It’s young wives, mamas, and babies getting together for outdoor adventures, coffee, and craft parties. It’s group texts at one in the morning when someone needs prayer, and baby showers at two in the afternoon to celebrate the next little bundle who will join the crew.
It’s someone letting you borrow their car while yours is out of commision and your husband is gone on a work trip all weekend.
It’s someone driving thirty minutes one way to bring you a gallon of homemade organic raspberry tea because they know Mom Shame has you in the mental trenches.
It’s someone saying, “Do you mind if your kiddo has that?” Or “I’ll look after your baby like they’re my own.” And it’s believing them when they say those things.
It’s countless shoes scattered on your front porch, as so many hearts and minds and lives are gathered inside, laughing with, connecting with, and living, truly living, among one another with God’s Word at the helm.
It’s caring that someone is sick, caring that someone’s struggling with family troubles, caring that someone is wrestling with God, and caring that others are truly known and loved as best as our flawed hearts can know and love other flawed hearts.
It’s truth. It’s beauty. It’s the beautiful truth that community, even when made up of tired husbands and dads, overthinking wives and mamas, and tornado toddlers and babbling babies, is worth every imperfect effort.
