When I first went off to college, I really struggled with creating new relationships. This was due to many factors, but once some of my high school friendships began to change due to our physical distance, I began to realize that this difficulty was going to be a problem for me. I began a long journey of soul searching and learning, and there are still aspects of relationship-making that I’m working on, but early on I realized one very important thing. I had a deep-set belief: if I knew a relationship I was beginning wasn’t going to last forever, then it wasn’t worth the effort of creating it in the first place.
Well.
The world had a little something to teach me about trying to continue along with that criteria for every new relationship I entered into.
Before college, a person’s life may be fairly stable. Mine was. I always lived in the same place and I grew up with the same set of people. Some of those people are still dear friends, despite distance, but others are not because it turns out not every relationship is forever. Then college begins a long series of transitions, various graduations, people moving, different classes, everything in the world begins to show you that some relationships are only going to be for a small period of your life. What I had to learn was that they were still absolutely worth it. I had dear friends in college that shared with me as we each went through the growing up process that we all face there. Our lives changed and we learned and grew together. My life is better because of those people, even if I don’t talk to them much more or at all anymore. I can only hope that their lives are better too.
Then came more changes with seminary, and finally this past year with an internship congregation. Talk about building relationships you know are going to end. Now that I’ve gotten this far in my journey of relationship building, I’m becoming better at it. I have truly grown to love and care for the people of this congregation. And just like that, I’m getting ready to leave. I’ve already started saying goodbye, making a concerted effort to not just disappear, as I’ve done before. Through my time with this congregation, always knowing precisely when it was going to end, I’ve learned a lot about the power of relationships, even temporary ones.
I’ve come to know God better through my relationships with other people. I proclaim to these people that God loves them fully and completely, even though we are all sinners. When I know that to be true for them, I can believe that God also loves me that completely. I hear these people’s stories about God and their lives and I see the amazing ways God works in the world, and how those ways are as varied as the people I meet. I have shared important moments with these people, and even though I’m not going to be their pastor forever, they have opened their lives up to me and invited me in to share in the presence of God with them, which helps me to understand the presence of God in this world.
I know that God works in many ways, and I know that one of those ways is relationship – long and short. Through understanding more people, we can begin to understand just how big, and yet how close, God really is. God works in each of our hearts, and God brings healing and understanding to us through the people we are closest to. And God provides that same thing for others through us.
God, the Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit, is a God made of relationship, and who made us for relationship. God’s Spirit resides with us, and we can share that love of God which we are created with.
My old understanding of relationships was so small, but I was young. I’m growing a bit each day, and I’m beginning to understand just how much God has yet to teach me through the people that come into my life and leave again.
Picture 1: Some rights reserved. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lauramary/2052023141/
Picture 2: Some rights reserved. https://www.flickr.com/photos/craftybunny/94933714/in/photostream/
~ Intern Kathryn
Trinity Lutheran Seminary Interns 