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I used to flinch at the word village.
It sounded like something polished people said from a platform, something broad and political and far away from the real ache of a young mother sitting alone in a house with little children and no one coming through the door.
I remember hearing that phrase years ago, tied to Hillary Clinton and her whole idea of what families needed, and it rubbed me raw.
I was in one of the loneliest seasons of my life then.
The kind of lonely where a woman can have babies in her arms and still feel as though no one sees her.
The kind where the days are full of noise, but the soul feels like an empty room.
So when someone said mothers needed support, families needed other families, children needed a wider circle of people, something in me pushed back hard.
Maybe because I did need it.
Maybe because I had none of it.
Maybe because sometimes the thing you ache for most is the thing you resent hearing named.
Those first eleven years of my adulthood were full of beautiful things.
Marriage. Babies. Faith. Growth. Obedience.
There was joy there, real joy.
But there was also isolation I did not always know how to carry.
I loved my children fiercely.
I loved my husband.
I loved the Lord.
And still there were seasons where I felt alone down in the marrow of me.
Then God brought us to North Dakota.
It was here that He poured a village over us like anointing oil.
Not all at once.
Not in some grand dramatic way.
One family at a time.
One kitchen table at a time.
One church service, one shared meal, one play date, one prayer request, one folded-into-the-life-of-others moment at a time.
The Lord surrounded us with people.
There are families here who have made our life richer than we could have made it alone.
Deeper. Warmer. More meaningful. More fruitful.
They came into our story like pieces of a patchwork quilt, all different colors and textures and histories, somehow stitched by God’s own hand into something strong enough to cover us.
They have wrapped their arms around us in our deepest times of need.
They have cooked for us when sickness walked through our door.
They have prayed when our hearts were raw. They have wept with us.
They have rejoiced with us.
They have corrected us when we needed it and stayed when lesser friendships might have quietly stepped back.
They have loved my children in ways I could never have fully imagined.
And we’ve had the privilege of returning these favors to the best of our ability.
Other mothers have looked at my children with tenderness.
Other fathers have been godly examples.
Older saints have spoken wisdom into them.
Younger families have grown alongside them.
Friends have cheered for their milestones, shown up for their hard days, asked after their souls, and made them feel that church family was not just a phrase written on a bulletin.
It was real.
It had faces.
It brought casseroles.
It remembered birthdays.
It prayed by name.
It sat beside us.
It stayed.
I used to hate the idea of a village.
Now I say, give me the village.
But not just any village—
Give me my village.
Give me the village God created especially for us.
Give me the people God has given us to do life with, to serve beside, to raise children among, to grow older with, to sharpen and be sharpened by.
“Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.” Ecclesiastes 4:9
I believe that more now than I ever did when I was young.
A woman can survive without a village.
I know that.
I have lived enough years isolated to know that survival is possible.
Many choose that path.
They keep their lives tucked away, private, controlled, guarded.
No one really gets in.
No one really sees.
No one brings the comfort, but no one gets the chance to bring the wound either.
Survival is not living.
I understand the impulse.
I do not envy the life.
Give me the friends who sometimes grate against me and teach me patience.
Give me the older women whose wisdom feels like bread.
Give me the young mothers who remind me of who I used to be.
Give me the children running through the church hallways.
Give me the conversations after service that start with nothing and somehow end in tears.
Give me the people who know enough of my story to pray honestly for me.
Give me the village God built, imperfect and human and beautiful.
There is a kind of abundance that comes only through people.
Not through more things.
Not through a bigger house.
Not through a more curated life.
Through actual flesh and blood believers who step into the ordinary and help carry the weight of it.
“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2
That verse has weight when you have been the one with the burden.
It sounds lovely when life is calm.
It becomes holy when your knees are shaking and someone else steps close enough to help you stand.
I have seen the body of Christ be the body of Christ.
Hands.
Feet.
Arms.
Shoulders.
Tears.
Meals.
Prayers.
Rebukes given in love.
Encouragement sent at just the right hour.
Faithfulness that did not announce itself loudly, but simply kept showing up.
It comes through the local church.
Through being planted.
Through staying long enough to be known.
Through letting people see more than the polished edge of you.
Through offering your own table and accepting a seat at someone else’s.
There is risk in that.
People disappoint.
They misunderstand.
They say things poorly.
They fail to show up sometimes.
We fail too.
Every village is full of sinners being sanctified at different speeds.
What a mercy that God did not design His people to live as islands.
What tenderness that He places solitary souls into families.
What kindness that He knew we would need more than our own four walls.
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” Psalm 133:1
Good and pleasant.
That is the right language for it.
There is goodness in a church family where your children grow up watched over by more than two sets of eyes.
There is pleasantness in marriages strengthened by other marriages.
There is safety in having people who know when your smile is thin.
There is joy in watching your children call other adults by familiar names because those adults have been woven into their memories.
Our village has helped us become more faithful.
It has helped us laugh more.
It has helped us endure more.
It has helped us serve better.
It has helped our children see that Christianity is not merely what happens in our living room or on Sunday morning, but a shared life among the saints.
Paul wrote of “striving together for the faith of the gospel.” Philippians 1:27
That word feels precious to me now.
Together in church pews.
Together around tables.
Together in hospital waiting rooms and baby showers and funerals and graduation parties.
Together in prayer chains and text threads and quiet living rooms.
Together through seasons when life feels light and seasons when the air gets heavy.
I did not know how badly I needed this until God gave it to me.
And now I look back with gratitude so deep it almost aches.
The Lord saw the lonely young mother I was.
He saw the years I spent longing without fully understanding the longing.
He saw the gaps.
He saw the places where I was tired from doing so much life without many hands around me.
Then, in His time, He brought us here.
To this northern prairie place.
To this church.
To these people.
To a village I once would have rolled my eyes at needing.
And now I weep in gratitude to Him for every piece of it.
For the young and the old.
For the loud and the quiet.
For the ones who have stayed close for years and the ones who were only part of a season.
For the friends who became family and the family God gave us through the blood of Christ.
This is part of my life more abundant.
This is part of the joy of the Lord.
This is one of the good gifts that came down from above.
And I am grateful—deeply, fully, honestly grateful.
Biblical Womanhood
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