Healing Relationships

The Lord God said, "It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
Genesis 2:18

When God spoke these words at the beginning of time the result was a wife for Adam. Many of us who are still single at an older age than anticipated cling to that sentence "It is not good for man to be alone". It's a sentence of hope and a potential foretelling that we may still get what we long for. Yet that's not the reason this verse came to mind this morning. The depth of truth that comes with the reality that it's not good for us to be alone has hit me on a different level. One of the big things I've been working through in my counseling sessions lately has been in regard to my fears and insecurities in relationship. The fear can be so great sometimes that I will choose to not speak up even when I'm feeling hurt by someone close to me. Speaking up may offend that friend and drive them away, revealing that the friendship wasn't as solid as I had initially thought. Unfortunately the same mentality occurs when I find close friends disagreeing with me (for whatever reason). I automatically begin to fear that because they're rejecting my opinion about something they must also be rejecting who I am as a person as well. This approach can take a lot of joy out of being in relationship with people. When all you do is spend time assessing what someone is thinking about you throughout your entire interaction you tend to miss out on the beauty of that person or the intimacy of the relationship you have with them. So, in discussing this in a counseling session my counselor inquired if I had ever just come out and asked a friend if they were offended by something I had said or how they interpreted it or me. The very idea scared me to death. After all, what if my worst fears were confirmed? What if they had taken my words negatively? What if they really didn't like a certain part of who I was? By the end of the session my counselor and I had decided I probably wasn't ready to take such a step of vulnerability in my close relationships. God had something else in mind. I was sitting at a winery with 2 women who have taken a very special place in my heart in my journey through counseling school. I truly feel as though God has knit this friendship together for this season (and hopefully many more to come) of life. As we sat and talked one of them asked a question (I can't remember what it was) that was somewhat related to my fears that I had been discussing in counseling. Before I knew it, I was spilling my guts and telling them about my fears and anxieties in relationship, including the fears I had about being rejected by them. Wonder of wonders, these lovely ladies did not reject me, put me down, or tell me all the things they thought were crazy about me. No. Instead they reaffirmed who I was and reminded me of how deeply they care about who I am. The next counseling session I relayed to my counselor with awe the interaction. My heart felt lighter and freer that I was able to express these fears and find that they were, in fact, unfounded. The Holy Spirit used this relationship to bring a bit of healing to my soul. I wonder how many there are in this world lacking in this kind of relationship. How many of the rejected, downtrodden, depressed, anxious, drug addicted, oppressed, promiscuous, lonely, sexually abused and insecure people in this world are in desperate need of such healing relationships? I believe that seeking out these people and loving them into places of healing is exactly what Jesus was setting the stage for His followers to do.