Mid-September in North Carolina is a perfect time for porch sitting – a favorite Southern pastime. A glass of sweet tea and a good rocking chair and there you will find bliss.
I was nearing my third trimester and we had just moved to our new(est) rental house. It was a 1970s Ranch style house with “gorgeous” dark wood paneling and “stunning” wallpaper. For us it was an oasis, wood paneling and all, after a wild ride of life in West Africa.
On a sun soaked fall day we took to the yard to wash our car and trim up the low lying trees – a bit of American normalcy. I waddled myself around the front yard pruning as our new neighbors across the street sat and stared at me. They sat and stared. They didn’t get up and come over to introduce themselves. They just sat and stared as I hauled my burgeoning belly and a pair of clippers from limb to limb uncomfortably aware of their gaze.
We lived in that house for eighteen months and our only interaction with those neighbors was at our mailbox which was next to their own and on their side of the street. Even then it was always from across a chain link fence.
We were wearied by life right down to the bone and that little house on Blacksnake road held us through an uncertain time of life. God held us and He used people to carry us along through new parenthood and all our questions about calling and place.
We found a church and a small group almost immediately after we moved. It gave us room to exhale. We don’t have a great track record with finding a church that fits us so we had braced for a long and disappointing search.
We were in desperate need of community that got off the porch and moved toward us.
I found it one night at a church community group bonfire. A sweet older mama called to me as I walked out of the house, her house actually, headed toward the backyard festivities. I thought she was talking to one of the other ladies in the group because she said she had something for whoever it was she was speaking to. She said it in the way you would talk to an old friend whose Tupperware you were trying to return. We had only just met so I thought surely she wasn’t talking to me.
But she was.
She was getting up off her porch to come toward me.
She had made me a baby gift, handmade and full of love. A woman I had only met once had made me and my baby girl yet-to-be-named a gift that started to sew up the hole where I needed community so desperately.
I recognized a tendency in myself through meeting this sweet friend. I like to stay on the porch. I’m comfortable on the porch. Give me sweet iced tea in a mason jar and a rocking chair and I’ll stay there forever.
I’ve always felt that I deserved people to move toward me to create community especially when I’m the new girl in town. The problem is that we’ve moved a lot and I’m almost always the “new girl.”
Some of us need to get off of our porch and stop expecting people to come to us. I know that sounds harsh because some of us have deep wounds from community gone bad. I get that. I’ve been there, but I’m telling you it is worth it, wounds and all.
I also recognize that sometimes we’re in places mentally, physically and spiritually that make it difficult to reach outside of ourselves. That means the rest of us have to be getting off of our porches to move toward those who are in that place whether or not they ever get off of their porches to come to us.
There are those of you who are always getting off of your porch and I want to thank you. You’ve taught me how to be brave in community. I’m learning how to live it forward to others who are still afraid to step off of their porches.
After eighteen months we moved to a new place, new town, new community and I realized that I had to do the hard work without expectations from others. The beautiful thing that I have found is that when we move toward others open handed and without expectation they move toward us. Our porches get shared and expanded and those fences that we used as defenses come down.
I’ll always enjoy a good porch sitting at the end of the day, but I’m planning to live my life off the porch from here on out. Welcoming anyone I know to come and sit a spell.
What you might not guess is that I don’t have a real life porch of my own. In fact we don’t even have a steady place to live. For the last year my family has been housesitting in a red-roofed double wide trailer and in a few weeks we’re moving into a temporary house while we continue to search for a more permanent home.
My real life isn’t a perfect picture of hospitality. I don’t have a well manicured lawn with a meticulously decorated house. No, my life has been lived out of boxes and storage units for the better part of four years and that has been my excuse for not inviting people into my home. For the longest time I’ve been willing to welcome folks onto the porch, but past the door is another story.
Home, for those in Christ, is wherever we find ourselves. Home isn’t so much about the space between four walls as it is the connection between two hearts and that connection can happen whenever and wherever we open the door. There is more than enough road weary women looking for home that can fill my in-betweens and don’t really care if the hardwoods glisten and the curtains are a mauve floral print from the early 90s.
We’re not looking for perfection; we’re looking for connection.
Do you need a push to get off your porch? Maybe you are looking for an opportunity to invite folks past the porch and right on into your home?
That is what (in)RL is all about.
Last year I spent (in)RL solo. We had moved the week before and I knew no one. I vowed that this past year would be about getting off the porch and that this year I would host a meetup with the women that God had filled the vacant space of community with. This year’s (in)RL is an Ebenezer stone of God’s faithfulness to me and my weak obedience to get off the porch.
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We are SO excited to share the world premier of our (in)RL music video with you today! “We Can Do Something Extraordinary” was written just for the (in)courage community by the amazing Christa Wells & Nicole Witt in celebration of what we can accomplish in Christ when we do it together – brave beating hearts – we can do something EXTRAordinary.
We know you’re going to love it and we’d be so happy if you would share it! {email subscribers click here to watch the video!}
Photo Credit: michaelgoodin via Compfight cc.
Quote image taken from one of the NEW (in)RL 2014 “Your Story Matters” postcards, now available on dayspring.com!
