Sister-time & relationships

We've just spent several days visiting my sister and brother-in-law in the beautiful, rolling hills of Tennessee. Oh, how I love sister-time!

Family dynamics always are interesting to me. When we were small, my sister and I really played pretty well together. We have many fond memories of playing house, store, school and restaurant together. Times of playing with dolls and even of dressing up our farm cats and dogs and pretending they were children.

Then we went through the pre-teen and teen years when I, as the oldest, didn't want to hang out with a younger sister. I'm not at all proud of that now and wish I hadn't ignored her when I hung out with my friends. But at that time, I wanted so much to be cool.

In our adult years, too, we've gone through times of being close and times of being a little more distant—although never very far apart. Now at this stage of life, however, we've both agreed that life is too short to ever spend time not speaking or not working out anything that comes between us. Our relationship is extremely important to both of us ... and we'll do whatever it takes to stay closely connected. I consider myself so blessed to have a sister who's also a dear friend.

Have you discovered a natural ebb-and-flow to some of your relationships, too, whether they be family or long-time friends? And have you come to a point where you made an intentional commitment to work it out whenever there were problems?

Relationships are so essential to our well-being, particularly for us as women. Sometimes they're hard work. But the payoffs are amazing, aren't they? When you decide a relationship is one you want to keep, nurture it and tend it as you would a delicate flower garden. It's so worth it!