Sacred Relationships Deserve Sacred Closure

I am in a spiritual direction training program and am learning all the ins and outs of spiritual companionship relationships, and needless to say, I have learned that they are sacred relationships ordained by the Holy Spirit.

Someone is bearing their soul to you -- their prayer life, their conversations with God, their wounds, their struggles, and their innermost needs. Someone is confiding in you as a source of mentoring, healing, and wisdom to bridge them to God. Someone is looking to you for direction in their spiritual walk. Someone has found a friend of their soul with you. The Holy Spirit has given the gift of you both to each other.

Whenever that happens, there is a sacredness there in that relationship that needs to be respected and honored.

I recently had one of these relationships seem to end without proper closure and I found myself in a spiritual spiral, questioning everything in my faith, having difficulty praying, feeling intense emotions like abandonment, and wondering why I was reacting this way -- why I couldn't just let go, forgive, and snap out of it. 

Oddly enough, at the very same time in my program, I was learning about the repercussions of a spiritual direction relationship ending poorly. The one receiving spiritual guidance can suffer spiritually, and it can have real consequences on their spiritual life. I was receiving a first-hand lesson in that. I realized that what I was experiencing was normal for a situation like that.

As this unfolded, I could feel God pulling me away for a time to keep me emotionally safe as I processed this situation.

Through this experience, I was reminded that the spiritual director, companion or mentor is a vessel for God's presence and voice, and I think that's an important lesson for a spiritual director in training. Of course someone would experience these things if they experienced God in the relationship.

I also think this is true of any sacred spiritual companionship -- even in our spiritual friendships. Our souls are delicate. When we trust people with what is in our souls, it's significant, and it deserves sacred communication, sacred interaction, and sacred closure.

So the lesson is, honor your sacred relationships, and don't be quick to let go without at least one last sacred conversation and release that protects that person from spiritual harm and gives them the closure they need.