turn turn turn

to everything
turn turn turn
there is a season
turn turn turn
and i time to every purpose under heaven

last night as our little Community gathered together for the last time at K&P's rogers park home, i started thinking about seasons of life, and about how change and growth and seperation and death and new life are tied in together in the Beautiful Mess.

looking around at the faces of people who i love so dearly who i didn't even know 3 years ago. people who have walked with me through some of the scariest and saddest months and years of my life. people who the Lord has used to make the dark and the lonely a lot less dark, and hardly ever lonely.

they have showed Jesus to me, and wrapped me up in Him when the world was shaking. and not only in the sadness and fear, but in the sillyness and light and joyful worship that happens when you are in the thick of it with people. lots of laughter, tears, food, teasing, and the warm flood of Deep Joy that wells up from watching people you love grow and change and mature and know the Lord better, and themselves better, right in front of you. learning to love in new ways. stepping out in risky communion with a bunch of other broken, beautiful, messy people. people who decided to listen to the Lord's prompting and become a family before we even knew each other. or knew what we were getting into.

i was thinking about their actual home, in an "if these walls could talk" sort of way. all the dinners and singing and praying and crying and laughing laughing laughing. all the love. seeped into the drywall and smoothed into the floor boards. remembering when i lived across the porch with The Boy and T, and how crazy that was, and how beautiful for a little while. and how we pulled together in new ways when the weather changed and the beautiful became a bit more of a mess.

sorry, K&P, but i'm fairly well convinced that your house didn't sell last year because i needed you to be down the street for one more year. for a year when i needed that home as an anchor. how well you loved me, even from down the street, just by being there.

but now, something new. a new start, a new challenge. for you, for us, for the RP. people have moved away from our little commune on the north shore. lives are changing, trajectories are changing. the love won't change. the story of all those early awkward meetings and the trial and error of trying to start something Big. and sitting in that room last night with the little core of Community dear ones, i know that there is no way that we failed, even if we never made it to that "owning a whole building and living all together commune style" idea. love wins. love never fails.

thank you, all y'all, and i'm happy to be able to say (even with slightly watery eyes) that i'm excited about the next season. to see what we who are left in the RP can get cookin'. to see what the vast expanse of the suburban frontier holds for K&P and the kiddos. something good. its gonna be good.