The Holidays are past. Christmas trees are piled for mulching. Ornaments are put away. Unwanted gifts are returned. Reflecting on the season now past, I consider the many people with whom I was able to spend time, the many notes and cards and texts, and the beautiful opportunity to share goodwill with those in our holiday circle. We can’t see everyone we’d like to see but we work to keep in touch with people. In some cases, this is the only time of the year we communicate but it is still lovely to check-in.

Why is that? All of us maintain many relationships. Sometimes they are seasonal, closeness coming and going through a part of our life. Sometimes they are family bonds, connected in shared blood and history. They may be work related or school or church – the communities within which we move. We have neighbors who we see intermittently, interacting through a wave or a smile passing on the street. Our level of contact is driven by the closeness of the relationship and sometimes once a year is enough.

What is a relationship? Between people, a relationship is an ongoing exchange, an investment of time in encounter. There are obviously different types and levels of encounter, but they all are sustained through some degree over time. They all require an ongoing set of choices: am I in or not? What do I invest in this? How much and how often?

Digging a bit deeper, we can see that there are elements that reflect the intimacy of our relationships. Things like love, trust, belief, and forgiveness form the bedrock of our closest relationships and are critical to sustaining them over time. Though there are many feelings associated with these elements of our relationships, like the relationship with the person him or herself, they require a choice. We choose to love, to trust, to believe, and to forgive.

Looking at them a bit more closely, we begin to see that behind the relationship with the person is a relationship with those elements. How so? I suggested earlier that a relationship is an ongoing exchange but most fundamentally, it is a choice. To be ongoing, an exchange must be chosen. Again and again and again.

Do I choose love? Do I choose belief? Do I choose trust? Do I choose forgiveness? These are not one-time events, they are ongoing choices. The degree and frequency we choose them, defines the intimacy of our relationship with the other person. Therefore our relationship with love, the way we see it, engage with it, and choose it, underpins our relationship with the person with who we choose to share it. Can I believe? Can I trust? Can I forgive? They follow the same pattern. What is my relationship with each?

Each of these relationships demands its own effort. It must be worked-at, maintained, re-chosen.

But forgiveness is a special case. A difficult one. Like any relationship, it’s not a one-time event. We may choose to forgive, but that doesn’t mean the hurt is gone. It doesn’t mean the failure or mistake is wiped away. Like love, there are many feelings attached to it but they are not joyful or pleasant or desired. To choose a relationship with forgiveness will be demanding – it will cost something. It’s a choice to be in a relationship with pain, difficulty, and discomfort.

And that’s really, really, tough. No one wants a relationship with hurt. Every time it comes around, we’re reminded of injury and our own vulnerability. Such hurt is often a great injustice and sometimes there is no reparation – some wrongs can’t be made “right.” Like the people we choose for relationship, we have to keep choosing forgiveness. Or, we don’t. And it’s often so much easer to walk away from it.

But like the human relationships we choose to sustain, forgiveness gets better over time. Our relationship with it, deepens, becomes richer, evolves. And like those very few relationships that form the cornerstone of our most joyful existence, forgiveness can lead us to a version of ourself we didn’t know could be. It is a relationship that can bring us to fullness of life, moving us to something more than where we started. Over time, forgiveness can show us something greater than the cost of the hurt which first introduced us.

Eleven days into the new year might be a good time to reflect on your relationships behind your relationships. What is your relationship with love? Trust? Belief? Gratitude? They are worth investing-in, nurturing. What about forgiveness? Perhaps it’s that relationship you really didn’t want, which bears fruit in the most profoundly unexpected ways.