This is my faith mustard seed grown. As you can see it has grown really fast but it is a bit limp. That, and a message I got from a friend asking for prayer this week, got me thinking about my little old mustard shoot.
Often we set off with great enthusiasm with our faith in what God can do with us, through us and for us. We plant that faith and it sprouts. But then instead of growing into a tree it goes a bit limp and wobbly. That’s because we can’t go it alone.
Look at these healthy mustard plants all crowded together
They are all holding each other up, supporting each other. We cannot be a lone mustard seed. We need others to help and encourage our faith.
Like with my friend, not just the one who messaged by many other of my friends, we don’t need to go to the same church. We don’t even need to go to church at all – though that helps. But what we need, whether we attend a church or not, is faith-filled friends who will help us stand strong in God, stand strong in our faith. We need friends on a similar wavelength to us that we can share openly and honestly with, who won’t judge us, or label us, or box us, but who also know us as well as it is possible to know someone else.
Faith isn’t meant to stand alone. Yes it can and it will but it will get tired. Faith stands better and stronger in communities.
Airbnb community forum. Well what an amazing bunch of people. No one made me feel daft for having let them stay and everyone who responded to my post was helpful. Airbnb said that unfortunately they could not take the review down because it didn’t quite break their guidelines. But with the help of the online community from around the world I was able to put up a succinct response to the review which actually, so the community said, took the sting out of the review and gave me the higher ground. And also helped others to see that here was someone just ranting. But it took me a while to potter through all this and come out feeling ok.
true and I did not like someone saying things that were untrue. As always timing is amazing and I was meeting with my spiritual director and so I told him all this. His response was that we all feel like that, which I sort of know to be true, and that it was ok.
glass and oscillate, as most of us do, between feeling like glass is half empty or half full. Or I can go to that total place of letting go where I am happy to give away everything in my glass and wait for the Holy Spirit to fill it.
helped as did various open and honest posts on Facebook from my daughter, from a friend whose total openness about his struggle with his sexuality was amazing, but not just that but the love with which his friends responded. As well as friends I have who are willing to let me be myself and my spiritual director, and my time being able to walk with my dog and think and ponder with God. And also we have just had two Airbnb guests who’ve stayed who have been totally lovely and have reminded me why we do this. So it is by community that we survive and can choose.
Aspirational Adventures 