Prayer Drawing -Fear of community.

To me, this picture represents how I feel about community. I really don't know how to express the feelings that led to this picture, but the water droplet that is falling is a tear that comes down from my fear of opening up, to being vulnerable, and being an active part of community.

One of my strengths is the ability to help others open up and to be able to encourage them in what's going on in their life. One of my biggest weaknesses -allowing others to do the same for me.

When I think about doing that in my own life I always struggle with thinking about why the individual would care because it seems like a silly thing to tell them what's going on in my life. I always downsize how much it hurts me because I'm used to keeping things bottled inside. It may seem like I'm strong to keep things together, but it's a weakness in an inability to share what is going on inside of me.

However, I've found that as much as I want to keep things bottled up and hold on to them, I've found that what's in my heart still seems to leak out, just a little, but enough to give me hope that it's the right thing. In the times that I encourage others, and open myself up a little to encourage them, I find that I'm watering a little bit of the dry ground in my life.

So the dry ground represents the community in my life. The little sprout of life shows that it's not because the ground isn't fertile, but because I haven't watered it in my own life. I am trying to learn to water it with tears of happiness and tears of sadness. To let people into my life, into my insecurities, so they can lift me when I'm afraid or broken, and rejoice with me when there are blessings or accomplishments.

I'm learning -or hoping, that with the right community of love around me, I can learn how to open up and let other people help cultivate my life.

I hope that maybe my experience might give you the strength to do the same. Perhaps your issue isn't with community and opening up in general, maybe there's some small area that you're afraid to open up to others about, or opening up to God. You're holding on to your pain so tight that you're not allowing life to come out of your experience. Perhaps together we can learn to let go of our pain and just see what happens in our lives.

With the hope of having the strength to be "weak",
Kate