Sunday night Gingernut and one of our teammates daughters had their first dance recital. It was spectacularly wonderful. Gingernut radiantly beamed as she performed the moves she had spent months rehearsing. I was filled with emotion and pride as I watched her every move across the brightly lit stage.

It is things like dance recitals and soccer games that make you miss having family around. I saw grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins…all for the other dancers. As we stood in line outside the auditorium, waiting to run like we were in Pamplona about to be trampled by bulls all in efforts to get good seats, I saw one-by-one different people from our community arrive to see two little girls dance.

And I was overwhelmed. These weren’t just teammates and friends but my community – my extended family.

I just read an article on The Gospel Coalition that addressed the number one why missionaries leave the field. In a nutshell, it’s the people they work with – their team.

I’ve seen how not having a team is not beneficial – we weren’t meant to work in silos. After all, no man is an island. Our biblical example is that we work with others. From the beginning God saw that it was not good for man to be alone.

However, being on a team does not automatically mean that you have community and will work together to achieve the same goals. Don’t believe me? Have you ever seen a sports team NOT work together? I spent an entire year watching Lil’ Paul play soccer on a team in which every kid played individualistically. They all wanted to win but they all wanted to be the one who scored, going so far as to steal the ball from their own players during games. Yes, it was sometimes quite painful to watch.

I’ve also seen and been a part of teams that not only work well together but have community, and it is a wonderfully, beautiful thing. There is the sharing of burdens and cares, laughter and fun, tears and hugs, conflict and resolution. What emerges from it all is a surrogate family.

I saw this play itself out Sunday night, as surrogate aunts and uncles gave up an evening of rest after a long day to cheer on two little ballerinas as they danced across the brightly lit stage.

Truth.

Love.

Two very good things, that are very often separated.

A while back – like well over a year ago – my good friends/mentors/truth-tellers/pointers-back-to-the-Gospel, etc. Vince and Sharon clued me in on the fact that I am a glass half empty kinda gal. I was shocked and appalled. Nope. No way. I have always seen myself the other way – with the glass being half full. What they meant was that I am more of a realist than my glass-half-full-hopeful husband. I finally accepted the truth about it, acknowledging that once again Vince and Sharon were 100% correct.

What does any of this have to do with truth and love? Wait for it…I’m getting there.

Fast forward to a few months ago….After a somewhat painful conversation, I realized and truly understood for the first time that I am blunt. Shocker, I know. I am quite straightforward. But in my defense, so are all my close family members so I come by it quite honestly. To-the-pointedness, bluntness, straightforwardness – whatever you want to call it – is all fine and good unless it is done so with no kindness or love or understanding or any combination thereof.

One guess as to whether I was communicating things lovingly….

Keep fast forwarding to a few weeks ago….As I worked my way through Abide: A Study of 1, 2, & 3 John by Jen Wilkin, I was once again hit with the truth and love thing. There it was…glaring at me from the page…daring me to skip over it without reflection and prayer.

And this is what the reflection and prayer has awoken me to: because I live in a half-glass-empty realist world I can tend to communicate things in manner that does not consider the person sitting across from me. Depending on who that is, my communication can be seen as unloving and uncaring…even if it isn’t meant that way.

It’s all fine and good for me (or you) to be a truth-teller and to be to the point in that truth-telling. HOWEVER….it MUST be accompanied with LOVE. We must not only know ourselves and how we communicate but how the person across from us receives communication so that truth can be communicated clearly and LOVINGLY.

Does that mean holding my tongue sometimes? YES! Does that mean I have to think before I open my mouth all the time? YES! Does it mean that I have to have a filter? A resounding YES! Does it mean that I must actually think about the other person above myself? YES! YES! and YES!

It is in these moments that I sit in wonder and awe and gratitude for the Gospel and the grace and forgiveness I find there. I rest in the knowledge that the Holy Spirit reveals my sin in order to lead me to acknowledgement and repentance of that sin. His work does not stop there but continues to draw me closer to Him so that I look more like my Creator, in whose image I was created in and am to reflect…and I’m pretty sure He speaks in truth and love.

2 John 1:3 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.