Impact of Community

   The story of the birth of Christ tends to find it’s center around Mary and Joseph and that wee baby. But, there were others there in the pages. Zechariah, Elizabeth, the shepherds, Simeon, Anna – the names I’m sure that are just a sampling of those who formed a community around the new parents. The people who surrounded Mary and Joseph provided a support for them. Perhaps there was advice offered, wisdom, how to’s, and questions answered about babies.

   Community can have a great impact, to strengthen a person or people. When a community is strong, the individual is stronger because of it. We learn to rely on each other, to use our strengths and the strengths of others. I think back to part of my own community –there are five of us. Five women who have worked together, laughed and cried together, grown together, and searched together. A community which has brought me great joy and times of great prayer shared. Together we are stronger, more able to handle the worlds difficulties. The strength of the tender heart is balanced with the practical, the worrier is balanced with the one gifted with faith assurances. We are not a perfect community and I do not seem them nearly as often as I would like – but we are a community nonetheless.
   Who is in your community? Is it a healthy community? Perhaps you need to move to a different “part of town” so to speak. Is it a wonderful community that you can rely on and be relied on in return? If so – that is a wonderful thing. Enjoy and be blessed by it. In the meanwhile, remember this:
  Luke 2: 15-20
“When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.’ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”