Camping With Community

A few weekends ago we camped in my friends yard with our tribe.

Seven years ago I started praying for a few Christian friends. I had rededicated my life to Christ and loved all of the friends I had but I knew I needed a community of faith filled women around me to help me learn to walk in the way of the Lord.

Have you ever tried to stick to a fitness or nutrition plan completely on your own, only to give up after a week because it’s hard to be committed when you are not accountable to anyone? Or did you you experience success in your wellness work but there was no one to celebrate with, who would truly understand the work you put in? We need community beside us to be fully who we were made to be. We need a community in Christ, to walk the road of faith together, to contribute to and to fulfill us as Christ like beings. Jesus lived in community with others.

Galatians 6:2 Carry each others burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Through the pandemic and our choice to homeschool, we have been brought into community with the most amazing Christ centred families, which have now become our family in Christ. The prayer that I prayed for, for years, has now been fulfilled beyond my wildest dreams and is transforming how we live, work, play and worship, God is so good!

So we camped in our friends yard, we watched the sun go down on a few days and rose together, we cooked and ate together, our children played together, we laughed and talked and we held space for the imperfect and messy too. Our family is going through some challenging but good transformations right now. They are big changes and they are a bit messy at times. What I am learning is that God can handle our mess and so can our people, who have The Holy Spirit within them. They see us not our mess, they know how to hold space for the mess and even how to help us clean it up. They know how to offer loving help not advice and they know how to walk the road alongside. This is God work.

Have you ever shared something challenging with a close friend? How did that feel?

Have you ever shared something challenging with a group of friends? How did that feel?

At first sharing our challenges and struggles with our community felt super scary, like I am talking sharing words with a trembling voice and fighting back tears, scary. But you know what happens after the initial share, freedom and release because we are no longer carrying the burden alone.

Our camping weekend was filled with so many beautiful moments, as you can see from the pictures here. There were also some challenging moments too and while those moments were not fun, they were not worsened with the fear that we might be found out about our struggles because everyone already knew and that felt safe. Shame had no grip on us, we wrestled through the hard.

When you release your challenges and struggles into the loving hands of a trusted community, the shame that accompanies your hurts loses its grip on you and you are now in a space where you can heal and be fully supported in that process.

My prayer for you, is that you are on the look out for the people God wants to bring you into community with, through them He will bring change to your life in the most amazing ways.

I recently finished reading Find Your People by Jennie Allen and it really helped me understand how God designed us to live in community, find the book by clicking here. Gods perfect timing had me reading this book, prior to entering a season when I would need to rely heavily on my community and allow people to help me. This was extremely refining God work and I know this book prepared me to walk this road well with the Lord. I thank God everyday for these people and pray many blessings over us as a community and each family individually. May you find a tribe you can camp with too, one you can celebrate with and get messy with.

xoxo

Audrey