Living With Other People

Living with other people* has taught me so much in 21 years:

#1.  Don't worry or be afraid.
#2.  Talking honestly and a lot is important! Consider the affect your words have on others.
#3.  Laugh, dream.
#4.  Be gentle and patient with animate and inanimate objects.
#5.  Be a lady.
#6.  Work hard and be disciplined.
#7.  People will talk differently, do things differently and like different things than you and that's OK.
#8.  You can't make anybody do anything, you have to respect everyone.
#9.  People have different perspectives that will surprise you and help immensely in life.
#10. God is love and His greatest expectation of us is love.  Love is patience, kindness, forgiveness, mercy, trust, protection.

There's so much more but this is the tidy, 10.

*I live in an "intentional" Christian community.  We live on about 120 acres of beautiful country in mobile homes.  Though it is now one family per house on average, growing up I have lived in houses with one or more families plus grandparents and single people in the mix at times.  Our number one belief is that God wants us to be a gracious and kind family seeking Him in everything.

Tall people want to be shorter, short people want to be taller, fair people want to be tanner, dark people want to be lighter, straight haired people want to have curly hair, curly haired people want to have straight hair, big breasted women want smaller breasts, small breasted women want larger breasts and on and on.

Wow, we think about our outer person a lot like that!  What if there were no mirrors or photos? What if we weren't so aware of our outward appearances and what if we didn't compare our outward appearances to others?  What if we just lived our lives doing and reading and giving and working and creating and learning.

It seems like we have this goal (whether we realize or not) to be the same as everyone else. That's what would happen if it were in everyone's power to change everything about themselves that they could.  Everyone would be the same height, weight, everyone would have the same color hair and eyes.  There's plenty of weird futuristic movies where man has made a world like that.  You might feel that life would be easier if we were all the same.  Others wouldn't judge you, or make fun of you because they would be just like you.  You're right.  It probably would be easier, but God likes diversity.  That's why He made so many types of humans. And animals. And plants. And sunsets.

Sometimes I wish my eyes would only be looking out at the world and not down at myself.  I would be freer and maybe even more confident.  Thinking about myself, hoping people approve of how I look, what I do and say, keeps me from thinking of others.  I'm caught, trapped in myself where there's fear and anxiety.  I would rather stand up straight, listen to others, feel the moments and become in sync with the dance of life and interaction with them.  When I'm not thinking about what they think of me, I can truly live.  I can react the way I need to react in situations, I can be calm and wait for the opportune time that is coming my way, I can help others be free.

What is Freedom?

At age 14 my friends and I gave going away "blessing" for one of our peers.  We wanted to giver her meaningful gifts and show her she was loved and would be missed.

We all gave her something that represented our idea of freedom.  We wanted her to be free to be herself, free from worrying what others think about her.

This is something we all struggle with and our responses vary as much as we vary as human beings.

I know more about freedom now than I did when I was 14.

There is freedom in obeying Jesus Christ and here's why:  Jesus says to love one another and not be selfish.  So often it is my fear of what others think of me that holds me back from ever being all that I can be.  This is selfishness.   When my eyes are stuck on myself and how I want others to view me, I spiral down, down, down.

When I love and put others needs and what Jesus asks of me as my top priority, I am free.

Living for myself is slavery.