Engaging in Commitment

Don’t worry I am not going to give some sort of word definition lecture. I am pretty sure that we all have a good idea what commitment means. But then again that may be assuming too much. I have just recently realized that I assume way too many things about what people understand. I thought I no longer assumed a lot of things about people and I have just recently been brought back to earth in my assumption of my amount of assuming.

So even though I said I was not going to give a definition lecture and I am not going to break my promise but I do have to give the definition of commitment because I can not assume that everyone knows what it is.

Commitment: a pledge or promise; obligation, engagement; involvement. (Definition used from: Dictionary.com)

I have been pondering the meaning of commitment. Thankfully I am no longer pondering it from the side of men since I do have the commitment of a wonderful man. But there are so many other commitments in our lives. I am not going to start a long discourse on every one of those things because they are different for every one of us. But I am going to discuss it as it pertains to living in community.

Commitment in community is a promise to live alongside people and gives you an obligation to consider others more than yourself but it is so much more than that it is engagement and involvement. You can not live in community without being engaged and involved and here is the weird thing there are actually people who think that they can live in community without involving in yourself in life together, without working, eating and having fun with the people that you live with. Engagement is a huge part of living in community engaging in life, engaging by recognizing your emotions and communicating them. But it is so much more than that it is an almost overwhelming sense of being with others, engaging in life. When a commitment is entered in to by any number of people it takes the vulnerability of all parties and a desire to place others needs (and sometimes even wants) before your own.

When a commitment is broken it carries with it every feeling of every other kind of brokenness. When commitment is broken and not even recognized as a broken commitment by one or more of the parties involved it makes it even worse. I am in the midst of broken commitment. Unfortunately whenever this happens it doesn’t matter how much reasoning I do and it really doesn’t matter how often I attempt to talk myself out of the broken feelings for me to really get through it and come out the other side still holding on to my own commitments I have to engage in the brokenness.