We are created for relationship, with our hearts open

Two weekends ago I went to Skopje, Macedonia, which turned out to be one of my favorite places I've ever been, as well as the birthplace of Mother Teresa, two really nice surprises to me. While there, I was able to go to the Mother Teresa memorial house, where I bought a cross with this saying of hers on it: "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

This is so fitting to what I have been learning lately. Here in Athens, I live with six other people who are wonderful, and each contributes something unique to our house and the world. They are tangibly showing God's love to me, visibly living the invisible love I receive from our Father.

While I always tell other people that their presence is a blessing, I've found in my first couple of months here that I don't always actually believe this about myself.

By offering themselves and their friendship to me, my housemates are each loving me into blooming, coaxing me out of my hiding places and showing me God's face and heart. They are helping me to trust more and more each day, as my friend Father Bill says, "the Christ that lives in me." It is a beautiful thing.

I'm learning what a gift it is to be a gift to other people, what joy it brings to believe that my presence, without me even trying to be someone, can be a source of happiness to others. I am learning when I open up and am generous with my time and presence, offering it to others and simply being with them, that beautiful ideas, connections and experiences happen. Being open and available is all it takes.

We each bear a unique image of God to the world, an image he created us to share. If we don't share our image, the world will never know this facet of God.

In a recent interview, Gayle King told Taylor Swift she hopes she isn't protecting her heart like a fortress, but that she hopes her heart is still open to all possibilities. I thought this was a beautiful, brave and vulnerable thought -- so many times closing off our heart to protect it seems like the heralded thing to do, what we're supposed to do. But we find God so much more richly when our hearts are open "to all possibilities," when our hearts are ever ready to receive and also to give, to share the fullness of who we are with other people. We are created for relationship, and when our hearts are turned out, open and ready to have faith in God, people and ourselves we can fully experience the joy that comes from getting to be God's -- and God -- in the world.

We belong to each other. Loving people and letting people love us, showing each other the Christ in us: it's what we're made for, it's what brings joy, freedom and peace.

Mia Pohlman is a Perryville, Missouri, native and graduate of Truman State University with a bachelor's degree in English. She lives in Athens, Greece, where as a Fulbright fellow she teaches English.