Finding true community in the places — and people — who walk beside you

Over the years, in my travels around this beautiful country of ours, I have discovered some really meaningful truths about what it means to be part of a community. What it means to belong to a certain group or tribe. What it feels like to be needed… and to feel wanted.

It was a powerful discovery, and one that many of us experience at different points in our lives.

Life has a way of taking us down unexpected roads. There are times in our journeys when we make mistakes. Times when we drift off track. Moments when a bad choice or decision leaves us feeling isolated, maybe even alone. Those moments can be hard. They can leave us questioning where we belong.

But something interesting happens in those seasons.

You begin to discover who your people really are.

They are the ones who show up when you fall down.
The ones who help brush the dust off after life knocks you around a little.
The ones cheering you on when you’re trying to get back on your feet.
The ones who accept you right where you are — not where you should be, not where you used to be — but where you are right now.

Those people are rare. And they are precious.

When I look back over my lifetime, I can honestly count on one hand the number of close friends I have who truly know who I am. People who took the time to understand my story. People who chose to walk alongside me through both the good seasons and the difficult ones.

For those friendships, I am eternally grateful.

I say all of this because I now live in a small town in Southeast Alaska, a place where community still means something. Here, a small band of people have learned what it means to lean on each other during the rough patches of life.

Some of them are family.

Some of them aren’t — but somewhere along the way, they become family anyway.

That’s the beauty of real community.

We need each other.
We need encouragement.
We need people who will love, honor, and respect one another through all the seasons of life.

Maybe that’s something we could all work on a little more — learning how to truly be there for each other.

Learning how to stand together.

Learning how to build a community where no one has to walk alone.

And when we do that… we all become stronger together.

— Alex