The phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” has always felt true to me. Children flourish when surrounded by people who nurture, guide, protect, encourage, and simply remain present.
But the older I get, the more convinced I become that the saying is incomplete.
It does not only take a village to raise a child.
It takes a village to live a life.
And perhaps what I really mean by village is community.
One of the more difficult questions I find myself wrestling with at this stage of life is surprisingly simple:
Who is my village/community?
Not who do I know.
Not who knows me casually.
But who walks with me closely enough to help carry life when it becomes difficult? And whose burdens am I willing to help carry in return?
I think our culture often measures community in numbers. How many friends. How many followers. How many invitations. How many people fill the room.
But I am learning that the health and depth of a village is rarely about quantity.
It is about how we show up for one another.
And honestly, I think I learned that first from my Dad.
He taught us:
Show up.
Show up to church when your community gathers to worship.
Show up for your friends when hard things happen.
Show up for your family when they perform in a concert, play in a game, celebrate a milestone, or lock their keys in their car again.
He loved solving problems.
And if someone he cared about was stirring the pot for a just cause, he would grab a spoon, show up, and stir that pot right alongside them.
He was with us—and I dare say with many of you too—in real and tangible ways when we needed someone exactly like him to show up.
The older I get, the more I realize community is often less about grand gestures and more about faithful presence.
The people who text when they know something heavy is sitting on your heart.
The people who stay through grief instead of disappearing in discomfort.
The people who celebrate goodness without envy and sit beside pain without needing to fix it.
And perhaps community is not simply about finding people who will show up for us.
Perhaps it is equally about becoming the kind of people who show up for others.
Because true community asks something of us.
It asks for vulnerability.
Consistency.
Time.
Patience.
Forgiveness.
Yet when we experience it—even imperfectly—it becomes one of the clearest expressions of grace we encounter in ordinary life.
Maybe that is because we were never meant to carry life alone.
Not as children.
Not as parents.
Not as aging adults.
Not in seasons of joy.
Not in grief.
Not in uncertainty.
It takes a village to raise a child.
But even more than that—
It takes a village to live a life.
