Healthy relationships operate through interdependence. Who doesn’t enjoy reciprocity? You feel more fulfilled when someone is pouring back into your jug. Whether it’s your boss recognising you did a good job, your child appreciating how much you do for them or your other half loving and respecting you as much as you do them. However the world seems to have the notion that individuality and chronic solidarity is the way forward. Just like how a bee transfers pollen between the male and female plant species its demonstrates that this healthy relationship is natures way bees for pollen and pollen for bees. There is a reason why the young are dependant upon adults and adults become dependant again when they are old, is this Gods way of highlighting the importance of relationship?

I understand that there are many toxic people that you may just want to remove yourself from (After all “Bad company corrupts good character I Corinthians 15:33) but perhaps we need to focus more on the root of the tree. Looking at the root means understanding the cause and not the effect. That essentially is the reason why people pay thousands of pounds to a therapist, or psychiatrist just to get to the root of their issues in life. 

Bonding is the crux of life. We are dependant upon certain people in our lives to create a bond, a relationship. It’s a known fact that babies need to be nurtured through physical touch and not just by being feed and changed. A study in Russia showed that babies in an orphanage died the earliest when they didn’t have any human contact. If you think about it we become who we are through love so it’s no wonder we crave relationship. Relationships help us to grow. “A man must leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife”(Genesis 2:24). I believe this scripture is not just talking about growing up and stop living in your parents house, but the purpose of a husband or wife is to continue the nurturing you got from your parents to enable you to keep growing. A man is who his mother makes him, and a woman is who her daddy tells her she is (Iyanla Vanzant). If you wasn’t fortunate enough to receive nurturing from both or even one parent is it no wonder there are so many failed relationships? People believe that when you get into a relationship that you need to be joint at the hip and be with each other 24/7. This is far from the truth because then that’s called dependency. However healthy relationships means you are comfortable giving your partner their independence and you also have a healthy amount of freedom. The trust grows as you grow together, interdependence means you support each other as you see fit, the action mimicks that of a seesaw. Interdependence produces fruit, the fruit of union. The question is…is unity under attack?