The Cold of Winter; The Warmth of Community

With hardship, at times, comes togetherness and community. Recently, we have experience a tough hardship at the Barn: Betty Meyers, the wife of John Meyers (the owner of the Barn) and mother of Deb Sheagley, passed away. So this past Thursday was a hard one. We still gathered for the Barn, and the Sheagleys were with family celebrating Betty's life, but from this all came a great sense of community amongst the students.

The night started off like normal. We made coffee and tea, started a fire, and hung out for about an hour. Following this, we got together and prayed for the Meyers and family, and then sang Christmas Carols together. It was so good just to sing together during such a time as we looked back at how through Jesus the 'weary soul rejoices' and how a 'new and glorious morn' is coming. After the chords faded, we gathered closely around the fireplace.

Normally, we would meet in the Sheagley's house, but to make sure they had the space we loaded more logs on the fire, and huddled together under blankets and finished going through the book of James. What a perfect passage to dive into. The verse that we talked about the most was James 5:16, "confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." What did it mean then for us to confess our sins to each other/pray for each other and why is it so hard for us to do? From these questions a really awesome conversation began: How can we better be a community? How can we trust each other? How can we better get to know each other?

It all seemed so surreal. There we sat so close together after such a hard loss, talking about what it means to be together. And maybe one comment sums it all up: "Maybe its like what you said last week," one of the girls began, "just in a different context. We just need to be no where else but here. Here for each other." The fire kept roaring, and we kept close to each other for warmth as we prepared for a year of getting to know each other all over again.