How God Cares...Even About Our Community
“During the months of April and July in particular, God provided. He brought people who supplied me with community, accountability and fellowship.”
Photo by Surface
During the pandemic, especially towards the end of 2020 and into the beginning of this year, I appreciated that God’s provision for me enabled me to stay in New York City and afford my lifestyle. Not that I live like a rockstar or anything, but being a performer, income has been touch and go.
As I take inventory of my current circumstances, I realize the sanity that I’ve been able to maintain hasn’t all been from a warm bed and a warm meal (though I’m extremely grateful for both!). It’s mostly come from the people that God provided in my life last year, even as he pieced the monetary provision together on my behalf. God has kept a roof over my head and food in my belly. Even when it may have seemed like I was cutting it close financially, I’ve had community girding me up every step of the way.
When the pandemic first began last March, I was still in graduate school and teaching private voice lessons at New York University. There was very little time to process what was going on in the world while moving out of graduate housing, transitioning myself and all my students to virtual schooling, and preparing for my final recital (which now had to be in the living room of my new Brooklyn digs). By the time I wrapped my mind around what was happening outside my small bubble, it was mid-May to early June. It was then that I was able to process what this really meant for those in the arts, as the steady checks from my assistantship came to an end. I had a mini meltdown. The world as I knew it was completely different. Normal graduation plans were (and still are) tabled indefinitely, and I was grieving the lack of all those end-of-the-year victory celebrations. It was weird and confusing, but I wasn’t alone. None of us are.
During the months of April and July in particular, God provided. He brought people who supplied me with community, accountability, and fellowship. Even moving into a new apartment was through a colleague who had some roommates move out unexpectedly the month before. Amazingly, the prospective sublet simply “never showed up.”
God is intentional and specific in addressing my needs, and my God will meet your every need, too. I felt that my interests were taken into consideration and accommodated. The fitness accountability group that God connected me with last May was my saving grace for consistency through all these swift transitions. The Bible study that he connected me with last June is a group of opera singers who are believers. The Elevation Church eFam eGroup that I’m a part of is a group of women that is committed to inviting God into our holistic health, falling right in line with the weight loss journey that I’m on. It is miraculous how God saw me, heard my cries and led me to people with whom I could be all of myself.
We are all going through this radical redefining of reality together, and yet there is still such nuance to everyone’s circumstances. The provision of God spans all aspects of our lives, including the luxury of having someone to call when times are tough -- someone who doesn’t diminish the reality of our pain, while still helping us find gratitude. It’s knowing that God’s hand is in the loving call from my grandmother, right when I needed it, or being able to talk about the fear in the performing arts world with my Bible study sisters. Provision ranges from never being short on a bill, to never lacking in a community that I can reach out to when things get tough mentally and emotionally.
I thank God for being surrounded by people I can trust to share my hard times and rejoice with me when unemployment gets extended again and I get another private voice student on my roster. It’s all from the hand of God.
Where have you seen God’s provision of community during this time? How has God met your specific needs?