I walked into the church, clutching my Bible tote and feeling butterflies in my stomach. Like the first day of school, I wondered will these women accept me?
As a new member at our church, I was invited to join a discipleship group with three women I didn’t know. I took my seat in the small circle and put on my best face. Inside, though, I was drowning in a season of anxiety and depression after having my first child, moving across the state, and processing my mom’s cancer diagnosis. But these ladies didn’t know how fragile I was, and I certainly wasn’t prepared to tell them.
The first few weeks, I put on makeup, gave a smile, and vaguely answered everyone’s questions. I was proud of how confident I appeared. The weeks went by, and my façade of perfection began to crack. I couldn’t keep concealing my struggles with sin, my apathy toward God, and my overwhelming grief. One week it all burst through, and I wept openly. I knew this would be too much for them. I was too messy, too imperfect.
Instead, they embraced me. These three mothers, in different seasons of life, prayed over me, wept with me, and encouraged me with Scripture. They welcomed me as I was and encouraged me to keep moving forward.
I realized God never intended for his children to carry the burdens of this life on our own. Christ desires to bear our burdens with us, and He often does that through His body, the church. However, the body of Christ can’t carry our burdens if we don’t first lay them down. They can’t help us if we are too ashamed to show our imperfections.
Ashamed by our imperfections. Our longing for community is engrained into our DNA. We were made in the image of a relational God. Before Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they enjoyed perfect fellowship with God and each other. After they disobeyed, sin fractured humanity’s relationships with both.
Now, like our first parents, we want to hide our shame and struggles. We post a cute picture on social media and crop out the overflowing laundry baskets and kitchen sinks. We stay home from an event because we’re too afraid other moms will judge our children’s misbehavior. We turn to Google and influencers for advice because we don’t want others to know we have no clue what we’re doing in motherhood.
However, when we believe we are on our own in life, especially in motherhood, we will always end up exhausted and discouraged.
Freed by Christ’s perfection. Christ’s perfect life, death, and resurrection redeemed both our relationships with God and with one another. Because we no longer must hide from God in our sin, we don’t have to hide from his people either. God adopted us into a family of brothers and sisters who He is transforming alongside us.
When we know Christ is at work perfecting each of us, we can allow our Christian sisters to see all our imperfections. At the same time, we can be gracious and compassionate when they share their doubts and struggles with us in return.
Just as God comforts us in our grief, we can listen to and weep with other moms enduring trials. Just as God frees us from condemnation, we can speak truths when other moms are believing lies. Just as God empowers our sanctification, we can exhort other moms to increasing holiness and hold each other accountable.
Imperfect community. Christian community is messy. It’s scary. It’s imperfect. In our individualistic culture, it’s often something we ignore or outright reject. However, Christ’s gift of his body is not an optional blessing we can take or leave. God prescribed the church to be an indispensable part of our Christian journey. Just as he didn’t create man to be alone; we are not saved to be alone. We are not meant to mother on our own.
Last summer, the women from my discipleship group gathered one last time. Though we haven’t met weekly for a few years, we stayed connected to encourage and serve one another. Now one was moving away, and we wanted to pray together before the Lord took us in different directions.
I peeked open during the prayer and looked around the room. The women I had so feared would reject me because of my imperfections were now some of my dearest sisters in Christ. They were the hands of Jesus in my life, carrying my burdens and serving me in my weakness.
Yet I never would have experienced this grace of God had I not surrendered my façade of perfection. Only by opening up vulnerably and authentically to sisters in my local church could I at last enjoy a community without pretense or shame.
by Her View From Home 
