When I was growing up, one of my favorite restaurant experiences was Piccadilly, a Southern meat-and-three restaurant where you pushed a tray down the line and pointed at whatever you’d like to feast on that evening. And at the end of the line was the dessert section. Now this was like gold to a young girl with an insatiable sweet tooth. Banana creme pie, brownies with whipped cream, key lime pie if you were lucky. But my favorite thing to get was the green Jello. And the best part was that the Jello would be cut into cubes and stacked onto a little plate so that when you gently shook the plate, every single beautiful green cube would maintain its shape and structure, and jiggle like a love-handle massager.
Jello is molded by what surrounds it. If you squeezed the little individual cups from the grocery store, the Jello would come out as a weirdly shaped tube, and it would retain its shape. If you removed it from a cookie cutter, the Jello would come out as a star, a circle, or perhaps a woodland creature if you’ve got over 75 cookie cutters like I do. At Piccadilly, it was obvious that Jello came from a giant tray and was cut into squares, because it retained that unique and totally satisfying shape.
We, my friends, are like Jello. We are molded by what surrounds us. If we surround ourselves with kind-hearted people and life-giving people, we will become more like them. If we surround ourselves with cold-hearted people and life-taking people, we will become more like them. If we surround ourselves by people who make good decisions, or if we surround ourselves by people who make bad decisions, we too will be more inclined to make similar decisions. And if we surround ourselves with Jesus Christ and His daily presence, we will become more like Him.
We are made for community. From the beginning, Scripture tells us that God Himself existed as a community: three persons in one. And God knew from the beginning of Man’s creation that “it was not good for man to be alone,” and so He created a suitable partner. Note that it wasn’t just the creation that was closest to Adam that would give Adam suitable community; no, there was a partner, a community that was best for Adam in Eve.
My friends, I feel compelled to share this with you because I currently belong to many wonderful communities. But there have been seasons in my life when I was part of communities that did not affirm me and breath life into me. And I know the difference in my own life. I have lived the better and the worse; I have seen the power of both. And I want everyone to know what life-giving friendship is and that it’s possible and that it is good and beautiful and positively life-changing. I want you, dear reader, to stand confidently and know that you have an affirming support system you can rely on when you’re staring up a mountain or down into a valley.
Christ calls us to sacrifice for our friends out of love. Surround yourself with people who will sacrifice for you. Surround yourself with those for whom you’d sacrifice. Be courageous enough to prune those around you who do not call you to be a better-version-of-yourself. Community is a gift. Seek to take advantage of every moment with the people around you; there’s a reason both you and that person are a part of your community at the same time. May God bless you and your communities.
Every day, our PRC partners become a community for women and families across the nation. Yesterday’s client story about Jenna and her twins Violet and Vivian from The Care Center in Tennessee confirms that the support systems developed at PRCs often help a woman choose life for her unborn. Please continue supporting these centers by your prayers and financial gifts. By supporting Biking for Babies, you become a integral part of these 30 centers’ communities.
Support these centers by giving today at THIS LINK. May God bless you through your gift to others.
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Our missionaries come from all over the country. This year, they hail from Wisconsin to Alabama, from New Jersey to Kansas, and many more states. They develop community by laughing during their video conference calls, sharing prayer intentions, and encouraging each other in their training. Biking for Babies offers them an opportunity to come together with other pro-life young adults who want to “do more” and live their pro-life claim. Biking for Babies invites them to encounter Christ through their community and through a physical way to make known a spiritual reality: that men and women are willing to go the extra distance to help women and families during crisis pregnancies.
If you would like to support Biking for Babies by helping us maintain our programs and metanoia experiences, you can give to our Sustainability Campaign. Your gift to this campaign will help us to thrive as an organization by strengthening existing infrastructure, hiring staff and compensating professional volunteers, and much more. This gift will allow us to better serve our missionaries, our PRCs, and our donors as good stewards of the resources we have.
To give to the Sustainability Campaign, visit our Giving Platform and select “Sustainability Campaign.” All gifts to this campaign are tax-deductible.
