Friendship & Community

This week, the themes of friendship and community kept revealing themselves to me in different forms.  Proverbs 17:17a says, “A friend loves at all times.” I received a beautiful cross with this phrase on it from a dear friend, just because. It’s not even my birthday!

1 Corinthians 12:14 states, “For the body does not consist of one member but of many.” I listened to a Christian podcast in which the speaker was urging her listeners to be in community. “People need other people,” she said. My church also just had its annual Fall Fair, where we are encouraged to sign up for Community Groups, Bible Studies, and other ways to be together and serve together.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” I stood in the back of Room 10 during Lauds and watched a sweet girl take the hand of a brand new student who hadn’t made many friends yet. I got a little teary as I pictured the love of Jesus so clearly reflected through one of our Veritas students.

We have become a society in which people largely live in isolation. Many of you may live in neighborhoods where your neighbors drive home, straight into their garages, and close the garage door before exiting their vehicle. My challenge to you this week is to reach out to someone and be an encouragement to him/her. It could be a new Veritas mom or dad, or it could be someone at your church or in your neighborhood. Ask God to lay someone on your heart, and then take that bold step forward. As 1 Thessalonians 5:11 reminds us:

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up,

Michelle