Community

What is community? a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. This was not the first definition that I came across when I googled the question, "What is community?" but it is my favorite. As I was growing up, I thought community meant my whole little hometown of Chipley. As I got older I realized that it was more like groups of people who had like attitudes or interests. Now I am coming to think of it more like a tribe or a village of close people who believe in one another.

I never realized how important a community or a tribe was until moving to Tampa with no one but my husband and his parents. For most of my life I remember always being surrounded by friends and family. I never really knew what it was like to not have friends. Even when I moved to Ellsworth AFB, SD at 18 years old, I had somewhat instant friends because my husband at the time had already been there for a few months and made friends and well most of the time in the military there are people in your same situations and you just quickly click. In every chapter of my life after that there seemed to be a ready made tribe or a quick connection of some sort as soon as I got to where I was going.

Until moving to Tampa where that wasn't the case. My now husband, grew up in Tampa. His dad has lived on the same piece of property for over 50 years. So he knows people here but didn't have a tribe to connect with right away, for his own personal reasons he didn't reach out immediately when we got here. So the community that I had been used to wasn't here. I didn't feel as if I had a support system here at all.

That is starting to change as I have met some amazing women in this town. I pray that I can be the kind of blessing that they are being to me. If you are somewhere that you have never been, in a room full of darkness, I pray that you have a tribe. That you have someone that you can call that will sit in the darkness with you to try to find the light. We all need a community of sorts... even if your circle is small, I pray that you have at least someone you can call your tribe.