Offering Home

I had a incredible opportunity this weekend to talk with the leader of the L'arche London community I volunteer at. I hadn't had the chance to talk to her for many months and it was really interesting to find out some things that I hadn't heard or ever expected.

When I came back to London at the beginning of the year, I needed to find a community to fill part of my heart that was missing. I felt more empty than I thought I would be when I left my summer job and there were so many things that I worried about the year. I came to the L'arche community in London feeling empty and desperately seeking something. I knew that I came with empty hands. I felt as though I had nothing to offer.

The references I was given from my earlier community were apparently very good and everyone spoke highly of me. For some reason this made my other leader very worried that there would be nothing for London to offer to me. When she told me that this weekend, I was shocked, almost into silence. The reason why I came to the community was not to find what I could be offered, but to see what I might be able to offer them between the hours of class I crammed into my life. The incredible thing was that when I came thinking that I had something to offer, I found that I gained so much more.

I came to Jubilee with very little. I had my music to offer and not much more. What I found offered back to me was much more worthy than what I had to give. I was offered a home. I needed a home in London, and that is where I found one. I think perhaps when we come with empty hands that we have so much more to offer. We don't think that we have something to give, but when we come with our hands open we see how full they really are.