Relationship

As I went off to boarding school in my pre-puberty days, I knew I was not going to talk with my mother or father for several months.  It was a sacrifice we, all of us, made so that I could get an education.  If I was going to learn, grow, and continue the process of moving into adulthood, I had to leave.  From that day forward, relationships with family and my soul changed.
 
I look back and realize that in the first moments I knew that being intentional in the relationships I valued was the only way I could function.  Doing nothing was not an option.  Even when I did not write, I found myself spending time reflecting, remembering, and treasuring the time we had together.  At the time, making a telephone call was not a viable alternative.  Long distance calls were, especially in India, extremely expensive, unreliable, and problematic.  We could not even imagine computers, a world wide web, mobile devices, or email.  When I was gone, even as I was physically separate, I was with the ones I loved in spirit.
 
Today we have incredible tools that are forever getting easier, cheaper, and more convenient.  Yet far too often, I find myself not being intentional.  I take the tools for granted.  I find myself getting lost in the virtual world each of us lives in. 
 
I am fortunate to have Whitney in my life.  If we are going to talk while I am away, she wants it to be tangible, real.  Her vehicle of choice is a fax.  For me it has and is an incredible discovery of being intentional in my relationship.  As a result, I see every relationship differently.  I do not find life in the voids.  It is in living and engaging. 
 
“This God says: ‘I am God, the one and only.  I don't just talk to myself or mumble under my breath.  I never told Jacob, ‘Seek me in emptiness, in dark nothingness.’  I am God.  I work out in the open, saying what's right, setting things right’” (Isaiah 45.19)