An Unsent Letter

I wrote this brief, clumsy letter to a friend on Wednesday, September 7 of this year, and it has been sitting on my desk collecting dust ever since. I am too chicken to send it, especially since parts of it are so poorly written. But I'm not too chicken to put it on my blog at 12:30 at night, apparently. Here is is.

Dear _______,
I hope you are well and that school is going smoothly.
I write to tell you that I noticed in my our last visit to your home that although I think we both greatly enjoy spending time with one another and joking around, our friendship is very surface-level and shallow, having had almost no "deep" conversations or below-the-surface sharings. I was disturbed by this realization because as is, I care for you and love you very much; you are like a brother to me. Are we content to hide our affections and feelings of kinship and allow ourselves to be limited to small-talk, banter, music, and childish humor? While nothing is inherently wrong with these things, doesn't true friendship demand more? Love for anyone can not be inferred; it must be expressed openly. I therefore would like to tell you that you are very dear to me and always have been and I hope that next time we see each other, our friendship takes on the quality it is meant to be.
God bless!
-Maryann


I just don't know how Jesus did it. I don't always know how to form deep relationships on purpose. I can do it on accident, but sometimes even when I want to, the means to do so are too lofty and challenging. It's sad, because there are so many people that I've wanted to talk to, to get to know and hear their story, that I never even introduced myself to. We're relational beings, but sometimes forming relationships is harder than it sounds. We have to take steps forward and be proactive though. Maybe a letter like this out of the blue would be a bit too sudden, but if I took small steps, in asking a person how they're doing, slowly asking deeper questions, that might work. Rather than just saying "Why aren't we as good of friends as we should be? Let's have a deep relationship," we should be more subtle about it. Subliminal relationship-forming. Until, at least, it gets to that point where you can say, "Hey, we're friends! We should do this more often! I like you as a person! Etc!"

Now I'm thinking out loud (or, thinking...through... my fingers...  hahahaha) and it's getting late and I don't know why I'm still awake.


Goodnight and God bless.