Fighting ALS, Fueled by Faith

Incredible! I was so tremendously blessed recently by the strong presence of our community. We had the walk I have been mentioning for a couple of posts previous to this and the turnout (over 75 in person and many more virtually), love, and support was incredible. Thank you for all the participation videos sent from our community from afar! We loved them and they are so motivational! We raised over $18,000 for the ALS of Nevada, which will go directly to finding a cure for ALS and also helping families in need. I couldn’t be more grateful or honored.

We all have good days and bad days. When you have illness there seems to be an amplifier on how good or bad. For me, the walk experience, pictures and videos will be a source of strength and comfort in the bad days for a very long time. This was a beautiful example of a community of imperfect people loving an imperfect person (me) but deciding that friendship and love matter.

God created us for community. He did not create us to isolate. It seems as though many of the forces of this world are now focused on isolating us. Social media, judgement, divisiveness in politics, the ability to communicate without actually having a dialogue, and many other factors promote aloneness. Aloneness is not good.

Another thing we struggle with is that people are messy. I mean we really are. The minute you get past the pleasantries and really learn much about the people you meet, things begin to unravel a bit. And the longer you choose to do life with them you really get to know who they are – that’s even more concerning. Maybe its their actions, morality, political views, status, religious views, or maybe their just weird. It is a perplexing and ever changing evaluation.

Many of us have created this subconscious bar, a standard for those we will let in to our life. We create a typically false image of ourselves and expect others to measure up to a similar bar. If that test is passed then we allow that person to go from acquaintance to friend. That’s when we raise the bar again. For many, as the people in our life pass these tests we perform subconsciously, they move closer to or further away from our inner circle.

Ultimately many end up with no inner circle friends and maybe not even any in the outer circle. This is not where God designed us to be.

I write this as a conviction because I’m not sure where my wife and I would be in our ALS journey without community. What I have always valued has turned into a true passion. I challenge each of us to pray about and evaluate where you really are with community. Creating realistic expectations and putting in the work with others gives you a license to speak into their lives and opens a door for them to speak into yours. I guarantee it will have its messy and disappointing moments, but I’m convinced this is where the richness of community really blossoms and where God can do some of His best work.

Be encouraged. You are loved. Find your tribe and love them hard! It’s so worth it!