Recent studies have shown that in spite of our highly globalized world—the global village as it’s called—where everyone is connected to everyone else, people are lonely. We’re so busy with work and worry that we no longer have the time to get to know one another, at least in person. We have MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and countless instant messaging programs. We’re more connected now than we’ve ever been in human history, and yet we’re lonelier now than we’ve ever been. Why?

For all our connectedness, we’re also more cynical, jaded, and temperamental. We approach everything, including relationships, with a shopper’s eye. We distrust each other and that distrust has led to a distance which makes real relationships more difficult.

We’ve all been hurt and that hurt leads us to be hesitant to trust again. We’ve built walls around us to protect us from hurt and those walls have left us isolated. We find it easier to build a “relationship” in the safety of cyberspace than to build one in person, where there is a risk that we might love. Why?

Love is risky. Love requires us to trust and that trust makes us vulnerable. Love forces us to open ourselves to the possibility that someone might hurt us. With that risk, though, comes, the possibility that our life and the life of the person or persons on whom we take such a risk may be blessed by a depth of connection and affection that banishes our loneliness.

Jesus risked much in his own life. He dared to build real, authentic relationships with his disciples. Did he get hurt? Yes. Every one of his disciples abandoned him in his hour of need. Was it worth the risk? Yes. While they hurt him with their betrayal, Jesus’ disciples also came back and took up his ministry again. They carried the value of risk and the reward of love to the ends of the earth.

Maybe we’ve found the love of our lives or maybe we’re still searching. Perhaps we’ve been hurt one too many times and just don’t seem to have the emotional energy to love again. Whatever the case, the holidays are about recognizing and appreciating the loved ones in our lives.

No matter what our romantic circumstance, each of us is blessed to have a certain number of people in our lives who support us and love us, who make life a little richer. We may not always recognize them, nor let them know how much we appreciate them, but our lives would be much poorer without them.

The road hasn’t always been smooth, but in the midst of the journey we have found shelter in each other. Together we are better able to walk the journey of life, caring for each other and those around us.

Anna Louise Strong has said, “To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be.”

Relationships change us—for better and for worse. The deepest and longest lasting friendships are those that challenge us to become more fully ourselves. We may struggle, but we find joy in the journey that we share.

In our moments of deepest joy, may we be filled with gratitude for each other. In our toughest moments, when we are ready to give up, may we cling to each other with white knuckles—like Jacob wrestling with the angel at the Jabbok, unwilling to let go—realizing that together we are stronger than we are apart.

We have been blessed with friends and companions in this life. Without them, life would hardly seem worth living. May our relationships nourish us and empower us to love ourselves, each other, and the world in deeper and more profound ways. May they give us the courage to continue to risk for the sake of love, for only love can banish loneliness.

As we enter this holiday season, let us give thanks for those with whom we share the journey of life.

The Rev. Wes Jamison lives in Pulaski and is a minister-at-large for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ. He also works as a counselor with a local non-profit social service agency.