Community and Relationships

Calm, content, even-tempered, and most of all, conflict avoidant, the Enneagram Nine description fit me. 

As I’ve learned more about Eights I’ve realized that they are generally self-confident, confrontational, strong, assertive, honest (sometimes brutally), and decisive people. When I read that description now I feel like it pretty accurately describes me.

What is the Enneagram? Join us at the blog over the next nine weeks to get a little taste of this helpful tool.

A lot of us, I’m sure, have heard how important it is to make a good first impression, which is true. But at the same time, people are complicated. It takes time to see who they really are, why they act the way they do.

Over the years, the Lord has done a lot of work in my heart to help me better love my family, dysfunctions and all. Here are a few practices I have found helpful along the way.

At Thanksgiving we are guests at God’s table of healing and grace. As good guests, we receive his grace and forgiveness and carry it out into the world to be agents of healing, even in the places where we have brought the brokenness.

As the hashtag #MeToo floods our social media outlets to raise awareness for sexual harassment, we need to ask how we got to the point where almost every woman has experienced some type of it. How did our world become a place where so many women are treated with such little respect?

Finding community is hard. We cautiously and optimistically put ourselves out there—we make introductions, learn names, give hugs, take risks, and make invitations like we’re staving off a great white shark in a scene from Jaws. And just like Martin Brody, we’re preoccupied with one question: “Will I survive this?”

I had just walked into Chipotle when one of my Asian American colleagues pulled me aside.

Congratulations! You’ve found someone you want to date who wants to date you back! They’re cute, funny, and sincere with similar interests and values. They’re the whole package—and then, bonus points! They’re a different skin color from you!