Relationships part 7

 

Yesterday, I invited you to start making an index of people who helped you write the book of love in your life.  Not every lesson in loving others was easy in my life.  We all have that first heartbreak of love early in life (high school or college), when we realize how vulnerable it is to care deeply about someone and to have that love end.  Love is fragile like a teacup dropped on a concrete floor. 

 

I recall the moment I broke up with the young woman I was dating.  I remember for a few days I thought the only people who understood me were Ben & Jerry and their delicious, healing ice cream.  My parents at the time didn’t understand.  My friends thought they had to choose sides.  I knew the truth God spoke in Genesis 2:18, it is not good for human to be alone.  Slowly, I picked up the pieces of that shattered, sharp shards of the teacup called a broken heart.  I wish I would have known more about grief.  I wish I would have known the truth that we either process our pain or we pass it along…I vented a lot of my anger on unsuspecting, well-meaning friends.  And after a few years of thinking I might never love again (young adult love tends toward the dramatic and drastic at times), I eventually met Gina which has changed my life for the better in more ways than I’ll ever understand or know or articulate.  And this week we will celebrate our 22^nd anniversary.  There is a story behind every name in the index of your book of love.

 

Not all the people listed in the index at the back of the book of our life are lights of love.  As you continue to add to your list of who wrote the book of love that you carry and cart around on the shelf of your soul every day, go back over the list.  You may simply what to put a plus sign (+), if the relationship was positive or a minus sign (-), if the relationship was negative.  You may need to put BOTH.  Other times you may feel neutral about the name and not put either a plus or minus.  There are several cousins, for example, who I barely know.  Their names would be on my list because I have some relationship, connection to these people, but it isn’t positive or negative, it just is. 

 

Or maybe you want to write a few words next to the person’s name about how this person left his/her fingerprints on your heart.  Describe what and how the relationship leaves a lingering impression.

 

This is YOUR list of who has shaped your unfolding, evolving, expanding, elastic definition of relationships throughout your life. 

 

Prayer: For moments, O God, when we are shaped by a Your love that never lets us go, we give thanks.  For moments, our hearts have felt broken into a thousand, tiny sharp shards of glass, we pray for healing.  For all the people who have left an impression; help us today name the good and let go of the past pain.  May Your grace guide us as we continue to explore our relationships.  Amen.