Relationships

Today was the funeral of my Great Uncle who died at the age of 91. I was not able to attend the funeral because I am many miles away from my family and where the funeral took place. I loved my uncle for his humor, honesty, 'frank' way of speaking, and even for his stubbornnes and sometimes in his later years, crabby personality. He was a dear man who lived and loved his family; me included.

I am single and living alone. I currently do not have any family in the area or even in the state that I am living in. I have many relationships here because of being connected to a church. Yet, I am still struggling to find and connect with people outside of the church.

Relationships are tough, tricky and sometimes just plain hard. Over the last year the relationship with my mother has declined and the relationship with my sister has grown. I guess it is all about the ebb and flow of life. The ins and outs of the Holy Spirit working through each one of us.

I often wish that She would work a bit harder to soften my heart. Or maybe I am the one who should be doing the work. I miss being closer to my sister, mom, dad and their spouces. But honestly, being away and on my own makes life a lot easier. I really do not know if that is a good or a bad thing that I am living far away. Have I taken the easy way out?

And life within the congregation is often very frustrating as well. Communication is hard, which then makes maintaining relationships difficult. Sometimes, like today, I wonder why. Why has God given the responsibility of living in relationships to such weak and vunerable creatures. At least a half of a dozen times today, I got frustrated with someone or was plain annoyed. Ugh. Not a pretty place to be especially when I am their pastor.

My prayer is that the heart be open and that the Spirit has room to do her work. Soften away. Offer me patience and peace. Help me to know that I am not the center of life and it is because of other people that I am to be here. We are nothing when we are not in relationship with others. I think that the definition of relationship should be: struggling and experiencing God's grace over, and over, and over again.

God bless you Uncle. May you truly know the peace and love of God unconditionally and thank you for loving me and teaching me about God's grace. With love, your great neice.