Community

Steve asked me to talk about community. What spurred this on is the fact that I live in a house with 4 other women, it used to be 5 other women. Let me tell you a little bit about this house. It started last year officially in August my commitment began. The house I live in is called The Girl's House and all 6 of us just desired more of God in our lives. It was the weirdest thing because I felt like I was supposed to live with Jessica, and we prayed about living in this apartment together and we both felt like it was God and the door totally shut. We didn't get it. It was a total yes. At the same time Juniper and I thought it would be fun to start another Girl's House. (We had one at the church a few years back for a summer and all the girls that lived there quit their jobs for the summer and just served Jesus in community) I kinda felt like I was supposed to with Juniper and also with this girl named Rachel. Rachel live in San Luis Obispo at the time as was currently getting ready to move to Redding to be with Sean and Linda for their Santa Cruz church plant. Well long story short: Juniper, Jessica, Rachel, along with 2 other girls Jenn and Lisa, and myself got blessed with this amazing house and great location by the Church and the Coffee Shop, and it was all from God. We had a vision set in place, to be women who changed the world through the love of Christ and the disciplines of the soul. The house was on it's way! It has been an amazing journey so far, we are just three and a half months shy of our commitment being up. We have had our good times for sure and we've had our bad times, but it has been amazing, and our bad times haven't even been all that bad. They are actually quite humorous.
Let me tell you though it is hard being in community all the time, between Yaks and the Girl's House, your home is a community and there is no escape. There is no where to go, where you don't always have to do the God thing. You can choose to do the wrong thing but you better have your repentance quick on your heals. It's been good to see the quality of my character in all of this. It has been good to see that there are things that I want and desire in my life and in my walk with God, then seeing that really I can't achieve those things apart from him. When you are going to move into community you think that certain things are going to take place in you, like the minute you move in you will start to exercise, or you will be able to start waking up at 5 to spend time with God every day. Those things that I thought would immediately happen didn't, and it has taken almost the entire year of living there to get those things in place. It has been good to live there because as weird as it sounds, you get to die to yourself every day. You get to think about others, but it is one of those things that has not been easy, I can say that most of the time I think of myself only, but God has worked something out.
It's wonderful living in a house full of Christians, because you don't have to worry about them bringing in something weird or demonic. You have 5 sisters available to pray you through things, you have 5 sisters to cry on and to share your problems with and they are faithful to listen to you. You have 5 sisters to kick you in the butt when you have a crappy attitude. You have 5 sisters that you get to pray with. You have 5 sisters that share your passion and your fire for God and that is the most exciting thing ever!
If I could do things different in the Girl's House than I have done, I would have been more submissive to the house leader instead of bucking the system, when the things that I was bucking were the things that I had desired. It's weird how sinners work. I would have served my sisters more. I think that I also would have been more transparent with them, I don't know what that really looks like. But the goodnews is I have 3 and a half more months to do the things that I could have done better. This Girl's House and Yaks have been the most amazing things in my life thus far and I can't wait to see what else God has for me when I get to do community in a different setting: Buffalo, New York!