Believe Manifesto

A togetherness story

When I first started writing about togetherness a few years ago, I had no idea the ways in which God would share people, books, workshops, and Bible studies with me that would make this idea such a foundational part of my life. I’m now at a point where I would say—family and togetherness are the most important part of how we live our lives.

Ten years ago, I probably would have brushed you off if you had told me family was important. I would have told you families are messy, broken, and not the least bit foundational to life. At the time that was my story. My family was in the middle of brokenness. We were in the middle of one of the hardest seasons. There were times when I couldn’t even see any light through the storm. But at the beginning of that hard season, God sent me a life raft that at the time I had no idea was a life raft. He sent me a friend who was going to be that flotation device during that storm. My sweet friend probably had no idea at the time that God was sending her to me for a specific reason (that only became clear to me this past year) that was to teach my family what deep rooted faith looked like.

Part of togetherness is having relationships where nothing is off limits for conversations. You say what you feel like saying and then you ask each other, “What’s the 10% you aren’t saying?” And then you share. It is a safe place to say the hard things, the broken things, and it lets all that out into the light so it no longer has power over you in the dark. Sharing all the hard with my sweet friend gave me so much freedom in that season. I didn’t understand that fully at the time but can look back now and see the slow progression. Day by day as she was vulnerable, transparent, a great listener, and a faithful friend—I started to see the storm rolling away. I started healing, growing stronger, and learning how to live out the deeply rooted faith myself. All of this growth poured out to my family. Day by day our family started to heal, grow stronger, and to put down roots. I think our family tree is still in the early stages, but we have roots you all! This journey took OVER A DECADE. We are not talking a quick fix friends. It took hard work! It took learning daily obedience, learning perseverance, and learning surrender. This was togetherness, this was family, this was discipleship. They all go hand in hand.

I am forever thankful for the ways that God has been showing me how to remember and share the glory of what he did (and continues to) through that season. I shared all of that with you because what my friend showed me was how God equipped her to have a strong family. It showed me that deep rooted faith starts with an individual, but then it transcends into deeply rooted family. This is what I call a strong foundation of home. She had created it, I could see it and I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Then, through God’s amazing grace, I slowly started to see that he was blessing me by equipping me to also be able to create this. Do you see a pattern? We create, we give it away, they create, they give it away. This is the pattern that God created and we see this from the very beginning in the creation story.

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he crated them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”

Genesis 1:27-28

God created us to be image bearers to reflect his glory, to create image bearers who reflect his glory, and then go share this good news with others so they can also create and share. This is the original creation story, God’s original commands, plus the Gospel, plus the great commission and it all centers around family. Jefferson Bethke says it like this, “God’s original idea for blessing the world (creation) was a family team.” This is the most important thing. This is foundational! This is the way God wanted to spread his glory!

You all, what is so beautiful about this is that family is togetherness. Togetherness does not mean the nuclear family ideal like Leave it to Beaver. Togetherness can be you and whoever lives in your home plus a young single adult you know from church, your elderly neighbors, plus the divorced woman you work with. God says we are all one family through him. You can invite the unlikely into your family. You can create a multigenerational family team who is on mission, on purpose, all for his good and all for his glory! It is time to take family off of the back burner and make family foundational again. If it is important to God, it should be important to us.

Some of you might be where I was ten years ago, you might be in a place of brokenness. But I want you to believe today: God is sending me someone to be life raft for me, to disciple me, to teach me how to have deeply rooted faith. You might be already living this out with your own family and I want you to believe today: God is sending me someone who I can disciple, who I can lift up, who I can teach how to have deeply rooted faith and show them what a strong foundational home looks like. Create and share friends, this is what we were made for!