By FRANK REMKIEWICZ

Columnist

Let’s pretend we have turned the clock back to 1960. Depending on the month, I was ten years old, going on eleven. If you didn’t grow up in that year, please pretend for a moment. Calling a friend even a few miles away often required a dialing sequence that was punctuated by an operator. You would give the operator the number you wanted to call, and the operator would dial the number and put you through to whoever you were calling.

In the 1960s, there was a second way of communication. We now call it “snail mail”. Back then, we called it “writing letters”. I spent a little over 13 months in Vietnam. Kathryn, my wife of 56 years, would write to me about two or three times a week. Mail delivery in the “bush” was infrequent at best. I will tell you this: getting mail was as joyful an event as a Marine could have. Not only letters, but homemade chocolate chip cookies, and once Kathryn sent me fall leaves just so I knew what time of year it was back in the world. Throughout all our lives, we have short-distance and long-distance relationships with our Father in heaven. This is how I describe our ongoing relationship with God.

In short-distance relationships, we are just a phone call away. We are one or two days away, and we can drop a letter. Mostly, in a short-distance relationship, we can hop in the car, drive a couple of miles, and spend some time with them.

A short-distance relationship with our Creator is very similar. Prayer is our telephone. When we pray to our Father, He answers our prayers. Then, on the appointed day for worship, it is a hop, skip, and a jump to get next to God. This is especially true in this short-distance relationship: we grow in faith, hope, and love. Much like a magnet, the closer you get to God, the stronger the attraction.

Sometimes we get sidetracked, go off track, or make a decision we have to live with. A simple example. I dated my wife’s sister, Carol, when I was fifteen, and she was thirteen. An early teenage infatuation. We broke up after about eight months. Fast forward, I joined the Marine Corps and landed in Vietnam in June of 1968. Scared and alone, I wrote to Carol and asked her to write back. Carol convinced her sister Kathy to write to me instead. Over nearly thirteen months, we developed a long-distance romance that drew us together and has lasted over 56 years. At first, a close relationship, then a broken relationship, then a long-distance relationship, and now a bonded love.

There will be times when, through accident, bad experience, poor choice, or lousy decision, our short-distance relationship with God is stretched all out of proportion. It may seem like the relationship is bent or broken. Next thing we know, God seems far, far away. We sometimes like to think that God has abandoned us or at least moved to a distant part of our life. That, of course, is not true. God does not move; we do. We sometimes find a huge chasm between God and us. We end up with a long-distance relationship with our Creator. When we finally realize that we messed up and try to figure out how to get back, we send a letter. That letter is really a prayer. God responds quickly, not necessarily with an overt answer, but God’s response always comes with grace. That grace, if we accept it, will lead us back from a long-distance relationship to a short-distance relationship. Through grace, we learn what we did wrong or what bad decision we made. Through grace, we ask for forgiveness. Through grace, we repent, turn back to the face of God, and our Lord forgives us and brings us back to that short-distance relationship.

We are all human beings. Perfect creations, corrupted by our own selfish motives. In life, we make decisions that are contrary to the oath our Father has created for us to follow. It is our nature. God understands and, through his Son, has provided a way back. When we drift from the path God has created for us to follow, we often wander far away. That creates a long distance. However, Jesus, our Redeemer, is how we can communicate with God. The Advocate is the way we can communicate with God. The Advocate is there for us to send messages, letters, if you will, back and forth to the Creator. In the vernacular, the Advocate is our lifeline, known as “phone a friend”. The gift of grace is there for us to accept, and that grace is what moves us to “phone a friend”.

In short-distance relationships, we draw closer to our Father. When we find we are a long distance from God, we need to “phone a friend”.

Frank Remkiewicz is an area resident and contributes a monthly column focused primarily on faith and religion. He can be reached at fremkiewicz@gmail.com. Opinions expressed are those of the author.