Family + Community.

A few weeks ago, my pastor stood in front of our small church and told us about a man he'd only met once and we'd met never, but who was being tried and in prison.
It was a small thing then. So tiny. But we prayed.
Consistently. Constantly. We prayed.
And we signed a little petition and posted on Facebook and prayed some more.

He was tried and convicted for eight years.
Eight years in a prison in Iran.

And we're still praying.
But the thing about it is now, so many people are praying. So many people are passing around petitions. So many people are making videos and writing blog posts and covering it on the news. So many people.
I got really excited yesterday. This movement to bring love to a man in a prison half a world away had suddenly exploded. To tell him he was not forgotten. To fight for him.
I watched it, small as a seed when it first began. And now. Now it is bursting with effort and joy and hope and warriors and lovers and word-bringers and joy-givers and believers.

Community. 
That was the word making a lump in my throat yesterday. Community. 
In my entire life as a Christian, that word has meant nothing to me. If anything, it had a bitter connotation to it. I used to scoff. Community, I would say under my breath, Community is for the mega-churches and fakers and hypocrites. Community is not real. Then I became less bitter and walked into a church full of sinners saved by grace and I wore jeans on Sunday sometimes and I found people that not only said they loved me but they actually do love me. And I was thrust into a community. And it was gorgeous.
I went to sleep last night, blinking my eyes and whispering thanks to my carpenter that I was now a part of a  community of small persons who do big things and a community of large persons who do big things.
I woke up this morning with a new word on my lips.
Family.
I said to myself, still bleary-eyed and with my hair all off to one side of my face against my jaw, A community is a family.

I want you to know that I have never woken up with a more beautiful thought gracing my mouth and creasing my forehead and wrinkling the corners of my eyes.

For the first time in my life, I really believe that I am a part of the family of Christ. And I am utterly thrilled and enthralled and enamored by that fact. The fact that I am a part of this, this beautiful group of burdened people and wretched hearts and hopeless lovers devoted to a man who was God too and died.
A carpenter.
A very long time ago a carpenter died. And out of that death a family was birthed. A family that is not perfect and still messes up and is sometimes very bad at showing people the best things about what they have. A family that oftentimes forgets to hug instead of preach or preach instead of hug and is full of hypocrites and secret sins. A family that is bitter and hurtful and crippled. But.
It is also a family that is being healed and perfected. A family that loves with no regrets and no limits and no conditions. A family that has strong shoulders and arms and is willing to hold. A family that will fight fiercely for anyone who claims to be their's, and even those who don't. A family that presses so hard because even though the world thinks what they believe is a fairytale, they know, they know it is true. Because they are a family of the hopeful. A family of grace and mercy and compassion and joy and love and peace and longsuffering and devoted and heart. A family of heart.
I am a part of the carpenter's family.

You can be too.
Start here. Sign the petition please. Learn love. And read 1 John.