we were made for each other

No, I'm not going to write a mushy post about my new fiance. (That word is so weird!!) The title does not refer to our relationship...per se.

It refers to the fact that I am becoming increasingly aware of the fact that we are created to live in community. Life was not meant to be lived in a vacuum. It was meant to be shared in all its glory--including the ups and downs, the smiles and laughs, tears and fights and all that makes up a life.

I think I've known this for a while, but I was reminded again of how great community is by two things that happened recently. On Friday night we did our annual Christmas decorating at Montgomery campus. If you've never experienced Montgomery campus in December, you really should. It is very magical. I half expect little elves to come out of the cracks and crevices.

There were the most people I think we have ever had to help decorate this year, and of course the decorations were even more extravagant than usual--every year we get bigger and better, which means that every year we can say it was the best one ever. But it was so much fun to walk in to the building after work on Friday and feel like I had come home to a bunch of family decorating the house for the holidays. I can't explain why, but recently something has shifted within me and I have begun to really feel like my church family really is family. We had a ton of fun decorating, eating pizza, and just hanging out together on Friday. It was much less stressful than an actual family event!

And then on Monday (which should be recorded as one of the most magical days of my life to date thanks to one Lucas Motley) I was reminded again that people want to share things with each other. They really do, whether they admit it or not. Because Lucas proposed to me in the middle of the skating rink at Millennium Park, and when he stood up, we hugged each other and the whole crowd at the skating rink started cheering. And as we skated off the ice, people passing us wished us many congratulations, and you could tell that even though we were strangers there was something exciting about sharing that moment with us.

And oddly enough, we talked about community this morning as we looked over the Big Idea guide for January. It seems I can't escape the force of community. Even though I convince myself sometimes that I am fully capable of doing life on my own, it's not true. It's a lie that we can be self-reliant. We need community in order to be happy. In order to share our happiness. In order to get through this thing called life. We were made for each other.