The Need for Relationship

Living in Lincoln these past couple of months has been great — I live in the upstairs of my grandparents’ house where they’ve lived for over the past 50 years.  So, I’m living in the same room my mom and her siblings lived in while they were growing up.  It has been a huge blessing to have time with my grandparents (88 and 89 years young) on the days I’m actually in Lincoln (which isn’t many…).  They are so encouraging to my ministry and pray for me and my many counsins daily.  I also get homemade cookies and ice cream every once in awhile =).  I don’t know how I would’ve survived raising support if Grandma and Grandpa wouldn’t have opened their home to me, and I am truly thankful for them and learn from the way they model love and kindness.

I lived in the Wayne/Norfolk area for the past four years as I was going to college.  I had never been to northern Nebraska before I went to my first campus visit at Wayne State, but over the years the area became familiar.  I now find myself missing that part of Nebraska… maybe not for the thriving cities that populate the area… ha.. towns of about 100-2,000 people… but because I left some of my best friends there.  This last weekend over Thanksgiving I was able to go on a trip to the Grand Canyon with three of my closest friends.  It was an amazing chance to connect now that we’re in different places and stages of our lives.  On our trip we saw the Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and even Four Corners USA (kind of.. who knew that four corners is actually a park that closes after dark? we sure didn’t).  This trip was a huge blessing as these friends are some of the biggest ways that God works in my life.

Opportunities to get together with old friends are rare, but in traveling to different campuses I get the chance to make new friends every time I leave Lincoln.  A couple of weeks ago, I got the chance to go to Chadron and spend some quality time with students there (until 3:30 in the morning quality time).  I absolutely love the girls at Chadron. They are so welcoming and honest about what God is doing in their lives.  So refreshing to be around! I am excited for our Christmas Conference in January where I will get more chances for developing solid frienships with these students.

 Thinking on all of these relationships, I feel very blessed and very thankful for God using these people in my life to show me more of Him and refine me to be more like Him.  The way we are created to need people and relationships is something I can sometimes find myself resentful of because it means I cannot function as an independent being.  That gets in the way of my pride.  But, the absolute blessing it is to trust and rely on each other to be effective as a body far outweighs any empty “satisfaction” I would get from only relying on myself.  It is a glorious thing to need people, and I am thankful that I need so many in my life.

(top picture is Kirbi Gall and me; middle picture is me with a group of Chadron girls; picture to the right is of Halie Hughes, Quinn Nisley, and me)

~ by karensharp on December 1, 2007.