It’s In The Cards

Every Thursday I’ll post an article having to do with either relational or emotional matters. Hope it helps.

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It’s In the Cards 

The volume of physical Christmas cards coming into the Dallas home has gone way down this year, replaced by online greetings, which have skyrocketed. And why not? Much more convenient and cost-effective, though I miss the look of our credenza piled high with cards on display, all of them seeming to say You Have Friends. That was very reassuring and cheery. So now my laptop sits on the barren credenza, screen up, with a message saying Trust Me, People Do Like You. Click Here for Proof. It’s not the same, but it’s something.

It’s the greetings that count, after all, and sucker that I am for all things Christmas, I read them carefully, reminisce about whoever they’re from, and treasure them. It’s like an annual report on who’s still in my life; not an accurate one, I know, since plenty of people send Christmas greetings more out of habit than affection. Still, when I get the report, it gets me thinking about what kind of friend I’ve been, and a year never passes without me realizing three things about relationships: They need to be attained, strengthened or corrected.

In my single years I got very few Christmas cards, reminding me I had many casual acquaintances but few friends. That’s not to say I was unpopular, at least in the technical sense. I seldom wanted for dates or weekend plans, and invitations to parties were pretty regular. But popular and connected are very different concepts, and looking back on those years I see, and remember, the perpetual loneliness of an unconnected life. I simply didn’t take the time to invest in relationships, a fact I was reminded of each Winter when others huddled together for Christmas celebration and I, too proud to admit I had little going by way of family or close friends, kept to myself. Relationships needed to be attained, and the fact that they hadn’t been was no one’s fault but my own.

A more current problem I see is the need to strengthen the relationships that are solidly, praise God, in place. I get a seasonal greeting from a friend and say out loud, “Oh, great hearing from him, he means so much to me!” then realize it’s been months since I bothered to pick up the phone/e-mail/text and catch up with the guy. And with all the means of communication at our disposal, that’s inexcusable. I suppose my friends know they matter to me, but I’m convicted, even as I write this, about the lack of time I’ve spent strengthening those bonds. Friends aren’t the frosting on my cake, nor even the cake itself. They’re the meat and potatoes, basic necessities that ought never to be taken for granted. OK, that’s it. E-mails or phone calls are going out today. No excuses.

At times, though, it’s clear that some relationships have diminished because something’s wrong, something that’s been unaddressed and avoided. I’d be a fool to think I could have relationships without occasional tension, and this is a season that often brings those tensions to the surface. Usually, they’re caused by something I need to confront, or something I need to acknowledge and apologize for. Frankly, I’d rather apologize, and will. But confront? Too messy; too weird. Yet I should know by now that if a good friend has wronged me in a significant way, I can hardly say I value the friendship if I won’t even bother to speak up about whatever’s hindering it. So maybe this season calls for correcting what’s been allowed to drift in the wrong direction. That, too, speaks of love and connection.

Let’s read our cards with an eye towards the value of the bonds we have with the Senders, and, as the Receivers, let’s be sure we’re attaining, strengthening or correcting as needed. That’s the year round stuff of life, remembered in Winter but needed month by month, lifetime by lifetime.