Of all the relationships I have made in college, I've learned that the most important one is with my Savior.

I've learned a lot since I began college. Oh sure, the classes have filled my head with knowledge and what is now called a liberal education. But more important, I feel I have learned a lot about people. In particular, I have learned about relationships. Relationships with professors, roommates, parents—who are now hours away—friends from my childhood, new friends. Relationships change and require work.

The most important relationship I have learned about is the one with my Savior, Jesus. Just like any other relationship, we need to spend time with Jesus. Getting to know Christ is actually easier than making friends in college. When making new friends, we have to ask a lot of questions: What's your major? Where are you from? Are you single? It's cool that Christ tells us exactly who he is, right away, in his Word. So often we take him for granted when we confess, "I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord." The Second Article provides one of the simplest expressions of our friendship. But we need to listen to his words and study them. Those words deepen our tie to our great Friend.

One thing we know about Christ is that he is perfect. He's the Son of God. So, in a perfect world, our relationship with Christ would be perfect. But we are human and still sinful. We make mistakes. We mess up the relationship. I've made many mistakes, many choices that have threatened to tear me away from Christ's arms. I know he disapproves of my faults and sins. But when we make those mistakes, instead of coming back to an angry friend, we find a Savior who forgives and cleanses us. He isn't some far-off, benevolent being; he is my personal best friend who loves me enough to forgive me.

Sometimes I'm brought to tears because it feels as though a passage in God's Word was written especially for me for that exact day—for me, someone so insignificant and definitely unworthy. I look at all the things I have done, and I'm hurt that Christ sees them—hurt that I've hurt him. So helpless and desperate, I am so very, very selfish. I see Christ, and he is white with purity; here I am, daring to smudge that perfection with the crimson streaks of sin! How could he love that? How could he love me?

But that in itself is the beauty of Christ. God forsook his own Son because of my sin. I can't imagine that; no one can. To be forsaken by God! People can harden their hearts, blot out Christ and reject him, but rejected by God? That is an entirely different matter. It's a mystery that I can never fully understand. Yet God forsook Christ for me. God loved something so despicable that he would go through the most unimaginable suffering. God did it to remove what separates me from him. That is a true friend.