Lutheran Church of Mahomet, The Invitation 2018 Programming Invitation | Page 7

We do not do life alone; we go
through life surrounded by
friends, enemies, family,
strangers, and people from all
walks of life. Relationships with
these people make us who we
are, and caring for these rela-
tionships brings a double bene-
fit of caring for ourselves as
well as others. Sometimes,
though, relationships take time
and effort to make healthy or
maintain good bonds. Some-
times, we are called on to speak
uncomfortable truths to friends
or family, or maybe they are
called to hold us accountable.
Maintaining healthy relation-
ships with honesty, trust, re-
spect, and love can be hard
work, but work worth doing.
Take some time to pray over
your various relationships,
the broken ones as well as the
life-sustaining ones. Also,
take some time to consider
people you don’t know well.
When we steward our rela-
tionships, we have to ask our-
selves, “To whom is God call-
ing me?” Friends and family
can be a support system for
us, and vice versa, but we are
also called to be in relation-
ship with our neighbor, with
our siblings of other faiths,
with the vulnerable and
downtrodden, with elected
officials, with teachers and
bosses… In all of our relation-
ships, we are called to be gen-
erous, to be God’s loving
presence with everybody.
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