.On Community When You're an Introvert.

I thought there was something wrong with me. Maybe something was broken. As a girl I was labeled "shy", and the way people said it made me think it was a dirty word - that somehow I didn't measure up or that I was a disease that needed a cure. As I grew the label morphed into "introvert", but the inadequate feelings remained. They permeated how I saw myself. My identity became wrapped up in that one, dirty word, and I cowered in its shadows.

I don't do small talk. At. all. I don't know how, I don't get it, and I am the most socially awkward person you will ever meet when put in this position. I stammer through pleasantries, and my face burns, my heart throbs, and I avoid eye contact. It's really disturbing, and I try to stop it, but that only makes it more awkward. And I get labeled as an "introvert" and they nod their head knowingly, and their lips turn up patronizingly as they realize that I am one of those. It's not them; it's me. But the strange thing is, when the subject turns to something real, with depth - something I am passionate about like orphan care, my children, Ethiopia, Jesus, street kids, family reunification etc. it can take a lot to get this "shy", "introvert" to shut up. But sometimes even then, when I get asked a question, even one that I am passionate about, sometimes I just want to say here's my blog link, go look there. I am always cautious in relationships, holding people at arms length, but secretly hoping that they will break in. It's a wonder that I have any friends at all, it is no wonder that they span just a small handful. That's my choice. Don't feel sorry for me. I do it to myself.

It's been 34 years of learning that my identity is not wrapped up in being an introvert, but that being an introvert is okay. This is how I was created, and I am trying to embrace that. There are, of course, weaknesses that come with this disposition, as there are with being an extrovert, I am sure. For example, so many times I just plain do not feel like opening up my life to another person. It seems far too exhausting and I feel far too vulnerable. It's a lot of pressure for me to be in community. I have high expectations that I seldom express and that often go unmet, and then I get hurt. Yeah, that's yucky to admit, but it is true. It's hard work to be selfless in relationships and to pour out oneself knowing that I could be betrayed by the friendship. It's inconvenient sometimes, and costly, and frustrating, because we are dealing with real, living breathing people. People filled to the brim with hurts and flaws. But I have written about it before, I know God created us for community - even those introverted ones like me. There are gifts inside of me, because of my introvertedness, and the body needs those. It is selfish of me to not share what God has given me.

I was created and born an introvert, but that is not an excuse for me to be invisible in the Kingdom. Blogging gave me a voice when I was too introverted and insecure to use my real one. I have found community online, and it has been sweet. I have learned to open up little by little, to authentically share my story - a story that my audible voice would have been too shaky to tell, but that my trembling fingers refuse to keep hidden. I am not going to stop blogging, and in fact I am purposing to hone my writing skills and to be even more intentional with this little space this year.

I have to be honest though, and that is hard. I have traded blogging and social media for real community for a long time. I have nurtured these relationships with words on a screen, but the spoken words between souls have become mostly silent. So many things have changed so quickly in our life these past few years, and it has made me feel isolated, misunderstood and alone, because the truth is even the shy girl needs flesh and blood community. I need friends, and I want them. It's frightening to think about starting over, because I have been burned more times than I can count. But fear isn't an excuse to hide.

Community is necessary and life-blood here on earth. So this year I am searching for it - I am nurturing my community online, but also praying to step out and nurture the real lives around me as well. I am tentatively reaching out and opening my heart. Sometimes all it takes to make friends is to say "yes" rather than hide behind excuses. Yes, I am an introvert through and through, but I really do love people. I love the stories that people bring to my life, and I love being invested in people. I just hate the "small talk" that it takes to sometimes get to real friendships where the "deep talk" happens. But if that is what it takes, that is where you will find me and my awkward self this year. Just ignore the blotchy cheeks and stammering, and please give me an extra heaping of grace.

.Community.

As we seek out to build this new kind of church, there is one theme that continues to stand out in the front - community. We see it in the book of Acts in the first church (Acts 2:42-47) - goodness - they were DEVOTED to one another. Can you just imagine a community devoted to one another? A community that loved each other so much that they desired to share their lives with each other? That is exactly the first church that God established, and yet, I look at so many churches today and see how very far we have drifted from this mind set.  How we have let our culture dictate our posture towards each other. We see this beautiful relationship perfectly lived out, way back in Genesis at the beginning of this created world - God, Jesus, and the Spirit were all in community with one another. The theme is woven throughout history, time, the Bible, and our world - although sometimes it is hard to find here in our culture which values individualism so much. One thing that resonated with me the most about Ethiopia, was the community that was there - people doing life together. And the women - oh, how beautiful the women were - loving on each other with lavish kisses, and literally raising babies together. They truly had a village. And I came home with an ache, because for the first time I realized, I truly did not, but I was desperate for it - breathless for it.

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We were not created to live life in isolation. And yet, so many of us carry these excruciating battle scars that keep us running from community. I am right there, too; I make the same excuses, carry the same scars, and have the same fears. As an introvert, it is easy for me to retreat, pull away from people, and become a hermit. It is comfortable, and it is second nature. And although, many times it truly feels like a security blanket to me, it is not the way that God intended me to live out this one life. Even as an introvert, I still need my people.

And the truth is, we all do.

But tragically, especially for women, community is complicated. If we are honest, we have all been on the receiving end of a hurtful community or friendship. The past wounds inflicted on our heart from other women, leave us questioning whether it is even worth it. The emotional  reactions that surface when we think of past experiences are bitter and real. Disappointment burns, betrayal bites, women and their words wound so deeply. And yet, we desire a community where we can be real and raw and broken and messy - a community where we can be transparent and vulnerable with no fear that we will be met with criticism and judgement. We want a community that takes on the posture of Jesus, where God shows up, and where the Spirit weaves. We deeply need community with other people - with other women. We want to know other women intimately and, we need to be known in the same way, and we need to be safe in the knowing. We need a place where we can know that it is okay to not be okay, and where we do not have to answer every "How are you?" with "Fine". Because none of us are fine, and it is okay to not be fine.

For a lot of years, I have learned to hide behind that "fine". I have hid for so long, that now at 33 years old, I am just uncovering the real me - the one that doesn't have to be hidden. The one who doesn't have to pretend to be perfect and put-together in order to be accepted. I have lived a lifetime of surface relationships, arm-length friendships, withdrawal, isolation, masking - faking. I thought I had to in order to be liked and accepted, and while it band aided the pain of rejection, it kept me from being healed and redeemed in community. It kept me from community. It kept me jaded and cynical and not able to maintain deep friendships, because although I am an introvert, I don't do shallow well, or small-talk. I like to go deep fast, get to the heart, but that is terrifying - for me and probably for other women.

I am desperate for community though, and friendship with women. I finally am beginning to see that this is what I am craving - a safe place to laugh and share stories, to cry with and for one another, to enter another person's pain and journey and life. My defenses and callousness and hurts and fears need to be melted away. I need a community where I can mess up and not be a good friend, and be grabbed by the neck and not let go. Because I won't be good at it - at least not right away. I want to be bare before my sisters - blemishes, scars, warts and all. I desire that genuine connection that God desires for us all. I yearn for community, and am excited about the women that God is putting into this new season of my life.

The best is yet to be.

.One Story at a Time.

For a moment I thought perhaps 2013 will be the year that I will stop blogging - when my fingers will hover over the keyboard and then slowly back away from the keys. The year when I will say enough. I've let enough people in, and I would straighten my shoulders, push back my chair, brush my hands off and walk away from this space. A space that has brought me so much beauty and so much pain. I have been blogging since 2005, shortly after my Cadi was born. I wanted a place to remember all of her firsts and what it felt like to be a young, first-time Mommy. My blog has grown and changed just as my story has grown and changed. I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Journals fill up boxes that tell of my life, my thoughts, my dreams - my story.

And here, this tiny space, in the great big web, this tells my story too. It tells a story that He is authoring, and the final chapter hasn't been completed yet, so gently He asks me to keep writing.

Keep writing when I am misunderstood.

Keep writing when my hands shake and my heart races.

Keep writing when the story doesn't make sense, and the next chapter seems crazy, or forgotten, or too far away.

Just keep writing, because someone, somewhere will connect with this story and will collide with these words, and our stories just may mingle and weave beautifully together in the Ultimate story. Because alone, our story is insignificant and incomplete, but as part of the whole, Ultimate story, it is beautiful and relevant, and it all ties together in a breathtaking mosaic.

When one shares a story - writes it and lays it open for others to read - there is so much vulnerability in the sharing. But if I have learned nothing else, these past years writing out my soul, it is this: we all have a story to share. It is in the sharing of these broken, everyday stories that the beautiful redemption of Jesus is so brilliantly seen.

I feel nudged to keep coming here and keep writing - to be brave when I don't feel like it, and write authentically from my heart, because I know there are other women working in the Kingdom, who just might connect with the words on this page. In Jesus we are connected; we are community. I know that other people are meant to share the pages of my story.

My prayer is that at the heart of my story, in the words that I share, that you find Jesus and your own words to share your story. Our stories matter. Let's take time to share them, one story at a time.

Come and listen…let me tell you what God has done for me. Psalm 66:16

(A few stories I am reading while the stomach flu ravages our home.)