Community Counts

There are factors and statistics that go into calculating whether a town is a good place to reside. Crime rates, home prices, and quality of schools affect the rankings, but one factor I’m not sure that can be quantified is “community” itself within a town. There is something very special about the love and coming together of a community when its members need it the most.

I’ve seen our community rally around many families during their darkest hours with love, food, t-shirts, and even yard signs! What a beautiful representation of the body of Christ when we take care of each other, not even asking questions, just knowing there is a need and then meeting that need.

Tifton has been a community of love and support toward me and my family over the last 3 1/2 years after the death of Sophia, and many continue to love and support me as I continue to need it with my physical health not recovering as planned.

A beautiful story in II Kings 4 tells of a widowed woman who met Elisha as she was preparing to have her last meal with her sons and getting ready to die. With her husband dead and women being viewed as property at that time, she was unable in her current situation to keep her children from being sold as slaves to pay her family debt.

But then her community stepped in.

The prophet asked the widow what she had in her house, and all she had was a jar of oil. The widow was not sure how that one jar of oil in her home could sustain her and her children.

Elisha told her, “Go, borrow vessels at large for yourself from all your neighbors…do not get a few.” She went into the community to get the vessels. I can imagine her knocking on the neighbors’ doors down the street asking for their empty jars not explaining why. I doubt she even knew at that point! It says nothing about people refusing her or her having to beg; she simply had to ask. Their response and meeting her need were due to her relationship with others.

Her reputation and her family’s good standing in the community allowed her to gather enough vessels for her miracle to take place. Elisha told her to pour the oil from the one jar she had and fill up all the others. She poured the oil in all the borrowed vessels enabling her to have enough oil to sell in order to pay her debt and live on the rest. This widow is a beautiful picture of investing into the community and having the community step up and care for her in what she thought were her last days.

I spent over 16 years as a full-time mom whose focus was her family and children and volunteered as the coach of athletic teams, served on various boards, and lead children’s choir before and after my children were even in it!  Now my children are all grown, and it may seem the time spent was futile, since there are now days when loneliness sets in and the physical distance of my children here on earth is great and the emptiness of Sophia gone even greater.

At a recent work event, a beautiful young lady stood before me and said, “You don’t remember me.” I immediately apologized and said I couldn’t remember her name. She continued stating she had been to my house and was friends with Sophia. I don’t know the names of literally hundreds of teenagers who have passed through my doors as friends of my four children. I know my desire was to always have it as a place of refuge for my own family and others who may have needed one. My family and I have invested into others in the community and the community has been abundantly responsive and invested back into us.

There have been people who have poured into my life, and people I’ve tried to be a blessing to, but the two are not always the same group. In fact, I did not even know all the people who brought food to our house after our accident. I could not recognize many of the people who have given to Sophia’s scholarship. We invest in different people and other people invest into us.

This is a crazy time in which we live, and it is easy to remain isolated, not wanting to be involved in activities, much less involved in the lives of others. Community counts. It matters in making the lives around us better, and in turn our own lives are blessed.

Invest in your community before the tragedy happens, before the relationship ends, before you are hanging on the end of your rope - build community. Find that group of people that you can build relationships with and take care of each other during your hardest days. It may be your Sunday School Class, your work, your poker buddies, or your professional group. Not only do we need, but we were created for community.

I know I’ve found my community, and when my physical healing is complete, I’ll be back to investing in others.

*Top picture: My community - Mother Daughter Bunko at our house 2012. We've been together for over 20 years! 

*Bottom picture: Sophia and Ladies Choice Show Choir group at our house in May 2018.