Gathered Together

Gathered Together

Where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.

We met on Sunday nights at the local coffee shop, arriving separately to grab strong coffee or steaming tea, settling weary bodies and souls at the scuffed wooden table. As one after another arrived, those already gathered offered welcoming smiles and hugs, asked about work and kids, and spoke quietly about the week ahead. Then, as one, we joined together to pray and spend the next hour talking about faith working in our lives.

Over the years, I’ve participated in countless women’s groups. Ones that were held in coffee shops, homes, or the side rooms of churches. Playgroups where my children climbed high on someone else’s backyard swing set and snatched muffins off picnic tables. Moms’ groups where we dropped off kids with volunteer childcare workers and spent an hour chatting about a book on anger or marriage. Park groups where I spent the better part of the hour chasing toddlers and sweating profusely. Quiet, early Saturday morning Bible studies with trusted friends ringing a living room. And reflecting on each of these circumstances, every iteration, I have to marvel. There’s something sacred about gathering together with other women of God. My deepest friendships, my greatest confidences, my heaviest prayer requests have often been revealed or strengthened at women’s groups. Because it’s in those moments—through the quietly voiced fears and anxieties and praises of those in our midst—that God reveals the state of our hearts to us and offers us the safe space to unburden them.

Friendship is fostered when we seek authentic community with one another, and gathering together corporately is one of the ways we experience this truth. When we invite our Savior into our living room, our backyard, or our local coffee shop, he is near, and his power is at work among us. Do not underestimate the power of women who gather together to seek God.

— Kristin

— Today’s Act of Friendship —

If you aren’t part of a larger community of women or Bible study, consider joining one.