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– by Alina Garcia Hernandez

God has blessed the Sword of the Spirit abundantly and in many ways. It was his idea that our communities would exist and live in such a distinctive way. In our communities we seek to live radically our call together with other brothers and sisters in a covenant relationship.

Our communities have families and single people. However, many young people who are living in community today have been chosen in a very singular way – a way not even our founders could experience.

Many of us came to community life without anyone “checking with” us, we simply were born or grew up here. I am certain that God wants that to happen for a reason and I trust that we have been chosen that way to do and to be something special for God.

I have taken the task on to discover the perspective of many brothers and sisters who have experienced this and I will publish one story at a time. This is the story for this week:

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Sarahí Anleu, Comunidad Jésed, Monterrey, México

To me, being chosen by God has been a constant surrender of every area and every stage of mi life. I experienced ‘being chosen’ since my teenage years where he protected me and guided me in good environments and kept me away from certain types of people (who could have been a bad influence for me).

Later in my teenage years I had some doubts about this call. Mainly because of my bad relationship with my peers. Having close relationships with whom to walk towards God in community was always a challenge.

For many years, I felt like the “weirdo” and not for being a bad person, on the contrary, for trying to do things well and open the door for community in my life.

Honestly, I don’t know if I would have arrived or chosen community on my own. It truly is difficult to embrace all that this call entails, especially when I disagree with other people’s attitudes or actions. But this is my home. God would have brought me here one way or another, although, the zeal and love I now have would have developed very differently.

God’s will is perfect and he has a perfect plan for my life, even though I don’t always like it, or it isn’t always easy. Being born into the community was God’s way of telling me that I am special to him, that he was careful when he created me, that he loves me and that this calling is my home – that I need to embrace and forgive in every circumstance.

My view of happiness is based upon Christ. During a prayer session when parents were praying with their children, He told me that this is the place where he wanted me to be, that he knew how much I had suffered and that he wanted me to embrace the call because he needed me to be a pillar in the bulwark.

I cannot deny that his plan that I be born in community was perfect. I am happy of being a child of God and if he wants me to be in community, I happily embrace that. I have given myself in everything: service, commitment, love, loyalty. I have allowed God to confirm his call to me in every retreat, every conference, every mission trip and every event that I have been to. I am willing to live and give my life away for this call, because I believe in the call and in the him who makes it.

I truly encourage every young person who has been invited by God by being born into this people, to give themselves the chance to discover – through services, activities, prayer and other people – that it is worth it.

It is not easy, it wasn’t for me and it is still not easy. But living this life has given me freedom, love, strength, character maturity and mercy. Those things are not easy to find nowadays.

I invite you to give God an opportunity to reveal himself into your lives by giving all of your time, commitment, attention and dedication. It really is worth it.

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I love that nobody checked with me! I thank God for the blessing of giving us that special gift for this life that he thought for us, to live it, to love it and to defend it as Christ’s work. I am a community child and a child of God.

Alina Maria Garcia Hernandez,  Verbum Dei. Mexicali, Mexico.

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Alina García is a member of the  Verbum Dei community in Mexicali, México. Sarahí Anleu is a member of Jésed community in Monterrey, México.

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