Introduction
Love entered in my heart one day
A sad, unwelcome guest.
But when it begged that it might stay
I let it stay and rest
It broke my nights with sorrowing
It filled my heart with fears
And, when my soul was prone to sing,
It filled my eyes with tears.
But…now that it has gone its way,
I miss the dear ole pain.
And, sometimes, in the night I pray
That Love might come again.
~J. California Cooper
The highest highs and the lowest lows of my life are connected to relationships. I think we all spend a lot thinking about our relationships. Even when they are good, we want them better. We pray over them. We wish people cared about them more than they seemingly do. People of faith particularly place a high value on community and celebrate the goodness of intimacy. Followers of Christ are rightly sensitized to relational interactions, because Jesus prioritized relationships (John 13:34). However, it’s also likely that one of the frustrations people have about church-life is that relationships are generally seen and described through rose-colored glasses. We forget – or maybe better said, we avoid – the harder side of relational life.
I would like to break that trend.
Over these next three blogs, I want to be honest about the challenge of relationships at three various phases of life. In each post, I am going to divide my thoughts into two parts.
- I will direct my initial comments to the specific audience I am addressing – single adults, married couples, and those who have been at “it” for a while.
- I will be addressing the whole community. In other words, how do we as a community respond to the various needs represented by each of these individual groups?
