….for forming community. Think about it, you’re put in this space for four years, (or five or six, depending on who you are), you don’t know anyone and are expected to make a whole new life without your family or school friends. So, you do. You make new friends, get involved with different activities and build yourself a pretty good routine. You start to feel comfortable around these people, who over time have become your best friends. You find your niche, your place and you really begin to thrive in it.
Then, you’re forced to leave, just like that.
Time to graduate, time to leave this place that you’ve invested the last four years of your life. Those relationships you’ve built, tasks you’ve accomplished, you aren’t going to see them to fruition; time to head out until the real world and start all over again.
See, it’s cruel.
That’s the type of thinking I’ve had to combat this year. I’ve loved my time at Samford U and have really grown as a person because of the things I’ve invested while being here. However, as senior year began, I felt a sense of impending dread spread. I’m leaving in seven months, seven months. All these people I’ve come to know and care about, all the things I’ve become involved in, will be out of my life. It hurts knowing that these things that have become so important to me will be gone.
See, community is important to me. I’ve spent my time at Samford trying to cultivate it through the student ministry RUF. Most of my free time has been spent meeting with underclassmen, creating bonds and fellowship between people in order to create a place where people who are excluded and lonely can fit in, a place where anyone, including myself, felt wanted. It’s pretty much been an obsession, so when confronted with the fact that I would be leaving it, I began to ask, was it worth it? Did this community I’ve helped build really mean anything?
My questions were finally answered this past weekend when I attended the wedding of Scott and Helen Morris. Weddings are the best places to see community, because it’s one of the few occasions where all of a person’s loved ones come together and celebrate. I’ve been to one or two wedding before, but this one was different. First, I think I just enjoyed it because I know the groom and bride so well. Besides being our intern, Scott and I have attended the same church for the past year, and we’ve developed a pretty cool friendship over that time. But, I think what really made this wedding special was that it gave me to opportunity to see the community I am now a part of.
Jason Sterling, the old RUF campus minister at Samford, officiated the wedding. Several RUF interns who I met at conferences and mission trips were there to celebrate with people from my church, as well as literally every single friend I’ve made in RUF. It was amazing to see all these different groups of people there to celebrate with Scott and Helen, and those were just the people I knew. We caught up, laughed, and spent the night celebrating the wedding of our friends.
I don’t know when it hit me. Maybe it was when I was catching up with Jason, or maybe it was when we were all breaking out our choreographed dance moves to Backstreet Boys’ “Everbody (Backstreet’s Back),” but somewhere in there I realized something.
It’s been worth it.
That night, I was surrounded by people who I’d come to care about these past four years. Some of them I hadn’t seen in years, others I spend every day with, but we were all together, all celebrating. And I realized, I’m part of something bigger than Samford. I’m part of something bigger than the RUF organization. I’m a part of the body of Christ, Christian community.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of my favorite theologians, writes in his book, Life Together, that “whether it be a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship for years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.”
Those people, some who I’ve known all four years, some who I’ve only spent a week with, we’re all connected because we’ve all worshiped Christ together. We’ve taken each other’s burdens, lifted each other up, and have edified one another through living life together these past four years. Those people are part of my family now, and it’s not because we lived in the same city, or attended the same school, or even attended the same campus ministry. We’re family now because we all belong to Christ and have lived that out with each other.
I’m part of something bigger than myself, bigger than my friendships, bigger than my future job, place of employment and place where I’ll live and raise a family. I’m a part of God’s family. That’s crazy and amazing and something I’m not sure I’ll every understand this side of creation, but I felt it. I felt it that night, and I feel it now.
I’m thankful for my time at Samford, because it’s here that I became a part of this Christian community. I’m thankful that I have brothers and sisters who I will care for, encourage and count on for the rest of my life. But, most of all, I’m thankful for Christ and that through His sacrifice I will never be separated from Him or His family.
God is good.
In the Thicket 