Siblings, Friends

By Staff Writer, Erika T.

I did NOT want to move to Guadalajara. In a town where everyone knew who I was, I was living a life I loved. Moving was not on my agenda. However, it was on God’s. Despite my internal objections, in the months before I turned 17, God made it obvious that it was His will that we move. Of course, it was a blessing to all concerned: the church we left, the mission we moved to, our family… One of the blessings I appreciate the most, which stemmed from the move, was my changed relationship with my brother.

It’s not that we used to fight like cats and dogs, or even avoided each other. We got along well. Once we moved, though, we went from being friends to being each others’ only friends. You see, we moved to a mission where the attendance to the services consisted of our family of five and about four more people, not one of which was near our age. We had to be friends!

I thank God for the fact that we were thrown together in transportation duties and Sunday School work. We began spending enormous amounts of time together; this, coupled with the fact that we had no acquaintances our age around, forced us to be friends, good friends. It was during hour-long transportation routes, picking up people for services that we learned – I, that if I cared about him I’d listen to his lectures on physics no matter how boring they were (and that physics actually was interesting if I paid attention!); he, that… well, I don’t know exactly what he learned. But I do know he did a lot of listening as well!

At first we talked about our separate interests. Several years later, we have learned to talk about each others’ interests. We went from discussing engines and books to talking about friendship to confiding dreams to each other.

Why have I told you all this? Well, God had to force us into a situation where the only person we had anything in common with was our sibling. It was uncomfortable. I was used to chatting with other girls after services. He was used to sitting with his friends outside our house. Now, before and after services, at home, during school (we were homeschooled) and going to stores we were always together. And we got to know each other as never before.

Through the move – something I disliked – God gave me one of my best friends.

You could wait, as we did, for God to push you into being friends with your sibling – though He may never do it. Or you could start trying to do things together. If you decide to spend time with your brother or sister, you’ll probably find you have more in common than you thought. Your sibling doesn’t have to be your only friend, but could easily become your best.