Hurt or Lonely … Which One Would You Choose?

          This past week our students continued in our series entitled We.  Here is a snapshot of this series, “In following Christ, there is one truth that most of us forget--we were never meant to do this alone. We need other people. It's critical not just because we need friends, but also because in community we understand more about who God is. We see how He is working in other people's lives. We learn things that God has taught them, and we get an opportunity to love and serve others. The WE series helps us discover the "WHY" behind community--why we need it, why we should pursue it--and why it's more than just what you do every week after a communicator speaks.”

Each week includes a discussion question/point that our parents and their students are encouraged to wrestle through together.  The second week’s discussion question reads as follows, Share a time when you were hurt by someone.  Then share a time when you felt lonely and really needed other people around.  After some time and perspective, which one was worse?  Why?

Community is one of those things that is ingrained in the fiber of our souls.  We all long to be connected to other people who really know us and don’t simply know about us.  We desire to be connected to them in a way that allows us to be genuine and authentic without the fear of judgment.  For me personally, there have been two men that I have experienced true community with and understood that a desire from deep in my soul was being fulfilled when we met, talked, and prayed together.  However, as you can imagine experiencing community in its truest form often times means that things can get messy.  In community you really see that “the rubber meets the road” as you get involved in the grit of the lives of others.  Author Heather Zempel writes in her book Community is Messy, “Sometimes people talk about community like it’s some kinda lovey-dovey, touch-feely part of Christ-centered living.  Perhaps it’s just me, but I think community is hard.  Maybe I’m just a hard person to have community with, but my experience point to the difficult truth that community is messy.  And discipleship is hard.  If we want to experience them, we pay a significant price.  A price that could cost us our blood, sweat, and spit” (p. 11).  Heather hits the nail directly on the head that community is hard and messy.  As we seek to develop true community and live into it challenges are sure to be lurking around the corner. 

For me, community has always been especially challenging because you trust someone else with the deepest, darkest places of your heart with the hope that their support will help through your challenging situation.  Trusting others has always been a difficult thing for me because of the number of times that I have felt hurt or even betrayed by someone else that I shared my heart with.  (Please keep in mind I’m not talking about teenage heartbreak here!)  There has been a few times where I have shared my heart with others with the hope that their words, prayers, and encouragement could help me through the situation I was facing only to have it turn around and blow up in my face.  These occurrences have often times caused me to back into a corner with the thought that I will never trust anyone again.  While neither of these outcomes is ideal, being hurt or being alone, I have tried to find the lesson that I could/should be learning through these experiences.

If you were hurt that means that you trusted someone else enough to open your heart to them with the thought that they could help you and you could help them as well.  Although you were hurt, it could be a growth opportunity for you, even though it probably does not feel like one, because you can learn what to share, when to share, and how to share your heart with others more effectively.  What I have found is that in those moments at least I had someone who could hurt me, rather than being totally isolated and alone. 

In the moments of being alone that I have experienced I have often felt isolated and as though there was something aching in my soul, which deep down was the desire for community.  We are created to be known by other people, supported by others, and lifted up by others so when we find ourselves in those moments of loneliness, we are not living into the desire for community that God created in our souls.

So while neither of these situations is ideal, I would choose being hurt over being alone every time because that means that I trusted someone else with my heart, feelings, and thoughts.  As you look at your own life which of the two would you choose experiencing community with the possibility that you could get hurt or being isolated without anyone to lean on or help you up when you fall?