Relationships
It was a warm summer day. I enjoyed laying back in the water, breast stroking my way across the pool at Roman Nose State Park. I watched the lazy lacy clouds drifting across the blue skies. I was enveloped in my favorite color – blue, until I heard a demanding voice. It was Hoppy the 
golden haired muscular lifeguard. He motioned me over to him. I swam over and he asked, “Are those your parents?” He motioned over to the shallow end of the pool.
There they were, sitting on the steps talking HOLDING HANDS. The serene blue of the day crashed, I was embarrassed as only a 16 year old can be. I nodded yes, and swimming away, I tried to recapture the euphoria I had previously.
Relationship. I thought about that tableau often, wondering how I could have been so wrong. I came to treasure the deep love my Dad and Mom had for each other. How they considered each other in their walk through life before themselves. How Mom ate the dark meat of the chicken because she liked the white. Dad ate the white pieces of the chicken because he liked the dark. After 30 years, they finally confessed to each other, and spent the other 20 years of their life together eating their favorite pieces of chicken.
Mom used to take the three of us for long rides in the old car, so as to keep the house quiet during the day so Dad, who worked at night, could get his rest. Mom prepared meals that were healthy for Dad, when he had heart trouble. Dad sat by the hour in the living room and was a part of every piano lesson Mom gave to a parade of students, offering his encouragement to each one. Mom spent many hours trying to teach Dad how to match his voice to a pitch on the piano, when it went awry.
That is relationship. I saw the same kind of concern and love in my grandparents and great grandparents. I watched my Dad in his relationship with his brothers as they reminisced about their childhood together. The Siemens brothers were known for their sense of humor and for their love for each other. During a Siemens reunion, I could always be found near them so I could hear their stories told partially in English and in Plautdietch and their laughter, as their wives visited in another part of the house.
My husband and I enjoy that special relationship, too, with each other and with our children and grandchildren and beyond.
And there is another relationship on a spiritual plane that grows stronger and more meaningful as I grow older. From the time I was a little child I knew the verse – God is love. I accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was eight years old, knowing my sinful nature, and desiring an eternal life in Heaven. In the ebb and flow of my life, that relationship with Jesus created a base that I often wandered away from, yet Jesus always draws me back to him.
I can still see my Grandmother (Grosmom Emilie) sitting on our front porch in the steel-springed rocking chair singing “Shall We Gather at the River” over and over, to the rhythm of the rocking. She had a hard working life, raising five children, and later caring for her husband who was paralyzed. Did she turn from God? No, she longed to go Home.
As I read the book, The Shack, I was struck with the word pictures the author used to describe the relationship we have with God. The power of unconditional love, the freedom of forgiveness, the inter-relationship of the Father, Son – Jesus, and the Holy Spirit and how they long to have all of us to be a part of their deep love-relationship.
John 3:16-18 (Message)
This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it.