The Healing Work of Community
In my own life and in the lives of others, I see both a craving and a necessity for community. Increasingly, I sense people all around me longing for authentic community – a place where honesty moves both ways, where we can be completely real about struggles, pain, thoughts, questions, and experiences, and trust that others will meet us with the same sincerity.
We long to share our lives with others and to experience deep, meaningful connection and harmony with God and one another. Real community requires trust, and it also creates that deep inner relief of knowing: here, I can be honest and I am safe. I can be truly known and still deeply loved. It offers the kind of belonging that says: “I see you. I know you. I like you. I love you.”
Often, I am moved with gratitude when I consider the communities surrounding me: The WellHouse community, my church community, my recovery community, and my community of loved ones. It is rich, varied, and abundant, and I am greatly blessed.
I believe people who have experienced radical life change – and certainly those who have experienced it through Christ – can offer this kind of community to others. They know what it means to be met with grace and how life-changing it can be to extend that grace to someone else.
I see this so clearly in recovery, where love, tolerance, and humility are promoted to be freely given to all people. This is one of the reasons why people find the courage and support to live differently than they did before and to break free from the powerful grip of substances. It is nearly impossible – perhaps actually impossible – to do that alone.
My church often uses a framework for ministry introduced by Ray Ortlund in The Gospel: gospel + safety + time. We offer the truth and hope of the gospel. We strive to create the safety necessary for honesty, vulnerability, and growth. And we give one another time. We tend to the process, journeying alongside one another – wherever someone may be in that journey and wherever it may go – and trust God with the outcome.
How true this formula has been for me. And how profoundly true it is for the survivors of sex trafficking we serve at The WellHouse.
The women who come to us have endured profound pain, exploitation, and betrayal. Their stories, like all human stories, are complex – including both what was done to them and choices made in seasons of darkness, pain, isolation, and despair. Their hopes for safe and healthy community have often been torn down time and again.
When they arrive at The WellHouse, they are courageously seeking help to find themselves again. With safety, time, and support, they can begin to see the larger picture of what has shaped their lives. They are learning or re-learning how to trust, how to relate to others in healthy ways, and eventually how to participate in healthy community themselves.
This process is understandably not linear. But here, they encounter a new understanding of faith: belief and trust in a God who loves them. They meet El Roi, “the God who sees me” – sometimes for the first time. Over their stay with us, many come to believe that the God who sees them truly does see them, and even truly does love them.
It is one of the greatest gifts of our work to watch women who have experienced such pain be given gospel, safety, and time – and then to witness the flourishing that can follow.
In the span of just the last few days, we welcomed back a returning resident, and it is a miracle that she is with us again. We also celebrated with a graduate who reached eight years of sobriety, and another graduate was just married in our chapel. What joy!
These moments remind us that restoration rarely happens all at once, and it never happens in isolation. It happens within relationships, over time, surrounded by people who continue to see, know, honor, and love. We see the fruit that can grow when a community offers gospel, safety, and time, and witnessing it can be so encouraging and confirming of our faith.
People feel safe when they are treated with honor, when their inherent value and dignity are recognized.
Pastor Jon Tyson has described honor as “the operating system in the kingdom of God.” Honor asks us to place a filter of value over people when we look at them. Honor recognizes that restoration, health, and empowerment grow in places where people are treated as worthy.
This is the heart of The WellHouse! Restoration, health, and empowerment are central to our work, and honor is the undercurrent beneath them all. It is what we desire for the environment at The WellHouse: a culture that gives goodwill before suspicion, love before critique, and grace before judgment.
When we, in all our humanity, can live this way – even imperfectly – I believe people may actually experience the love of God through us. The gospel becomes a visible reality in the way we walk through life together.
What might change if each of us carried this kind of community into our homes, workplaces, churches, and relationships? If we chose words that lifted people up rather than diminished them? If we looked for the value in others before searching for their faults? If we intentionally reminded one another through our words, deeds, and actions: You are seen, known, loved, and worthy of honor.
To every person reading this: thank you for being part of the community surrounding The WellHouse and the women we serve. Your prayers, encouragement, time, talents, advocacy, and financial generosity help create a place of safety and belonging where restoration can take root.
As we approach the final months of the year, we invite you to continue building this community with us. Your support gives survivors something every human heart longs for and every healing journey needs: the opportunity to be seen, known, loved, and never left to walk alone.