Some friends have been writing lately about relationships and the way they change with time. Here and here.
Sometimes it’s slow and gradual. Friends who used to be quite close drift apart. (Or the opposite happens.)
Sometimes it’s sudden and painful. A falling out. Someone dies. Or moves to the farthest ends of the earth…
…like, uh, Seattle.
It’s strange, really. Moving was absolutely the right decision. We’re here because we heard God’s voice calling us here.
But at the same time, moving disrupts something very natural — something God-given — in each of us: the need for connection. To know and be known. To find stability and community in the company of others.
Paul once wrote that “you yourselves are God’s temple” (1 Cor 3:16, TNIV).
The “you” is plural. It’s not, “you the individual are God’s temple.” It’s, “you the community…” Each of us is one stone or brick. Only together do we become God’s temple.
I suppose when you take a brick out and move it someplace else, it’s bound to leave a hole somewhere.
It may be an inevitable reality of life, but I don’t think we’re meant to ever get used to it. It don’t think we should become too transient, never staying in one place or season of life long enough to establish real connection with anybody.
And at the end of the day, some relationships are worth holding onto, even when you wake up and find several thousand miles of earth and ocean between you.
Ben Irwin 