all relationships come with lessons

Every relationship in our life, whether it be ephemeral or never-ending, brings to us a valuable lesson.

Sometimes a relationship teaches us to acquire healthy behaviors such as detachment, sometimes it shows us the importance of becoming bold enough to set up some boundaries; sometimes it leads us to cultivating self-reliance, and sometimes it instructs us to use our words wisely.

Whether a relationship hurts us or soothes us, we learn something from it, something that remains with us our entire life. The experiences that we have in our relationships mould us, and the lessons we learn shape our mindset and heartset. As B.J. Neblett has said, “We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.”

We never know what relationship may bring us what lesson, but we can trust that what we’re learning is precisely the thing that we need at that moment.

Relationships teach us how to love and give to others, and they also teach us how to love and give to ourselves. Sometimes, they also teach us the best ways to let others love us, and reveal to us what love languages we need to speak and which ones we need to listen to.

There may come occasions in our lives where we may not even know what lessons we’re learning as we’re in the midst of a relationship, but we can have faith that there is some lesson that we’ll learn out of our interaction, sooner or later. With time, the lessons will come to us, we don’t need to go after them.

As antithetical it may sound, be grateful for all your relationships and the lesson that each of them teaches you. Open yourself to learning the lesson from each relationship that you come across. And also remember that with each relationship you engage in, you’re also bringing the gift of a lesson to that person’s life.