When we read people’s Facebook pages, see people on TV, and walk down the street…doesn’t it seem like everyone is ridiculously happy all the time? I’m slowly coming to realize that not every moment of every day can be filled with the pure joy and doing exactly what we want to do. In scripture there are many references to people in the wilderness. Your wilderness could be many things. It could be not getting along with your parents, it could be struggling to decide what to do with life after high school, it could be a number of things. My question this week has been how does one celebrate in the wilderness? How does one celebrate when their spirit doesn’t feel like it?
This is where community comes in. The other day a friend said “We can’t fix our friend’s problems, we can just be there.” This statement helped me realize something about my own wilderness wanderings (which I have from time to time), I have to trust in my community to celebrate with and for me sometimes. I have a beautiful community of friends, and when I’m in the wilderness they are my voice that can celebrate. They are my voice that can sing praises to God, they are the ones that can help me find things that are beautiful. Who in your community can do that for you, who in your community do you need to do that for? In walking the wilderness with others, we can’t fix things for them but there are some things that we can do. We can hold their hand, we can advise, we can be the calm voice of love saying “the world is a beautiful place, you’ll see that again.” When we can’t celebrate…thank God we have a community that can.
