Especially when it's people you deeply love and care about.
Actually, saying goodbye stinks, it's horrible, and is terribly depressing, to be frankly honest.
We have yet another goodbye to experience this week, as a family very dear to us will be packing their bags and heading home for good. There are no words I can use to express how incredible this family is. Their son is in our youth group and it has been a privilege watching him grow spiritually this past year! I personally was close to him because he always played bongos or drums with me for youth worship times.
I sit here as I type and think, "Why do I get so darn attached to people?" I have this habit of loving people so much it hurts. Every person I am close to, and especially every youth group student, takes hold of my heart and I am captivated by their personalities, their hurts, their disappointments, their joys, and it's almost like I feel it with them. We walk through so much with the people we love and care about. It's like a part of me is forever gone as I have invested so much into the ones I love. And you know, I don't regret giving my love away. I don't regret that whenever someone I was close to walks away, because they take a little piece of me with them forever.
If I had to chose between staying safe and comfortable in my own little bubble hardly sharing my life with others and saving myself pain, or giving myself wholeheartedly to others and then having to say goodbye, I choose the latter.
And yet I am reminded that this is not our home! Earth, this life, is just a temporary shadow of what's to come. Eternity is calling me, drawing me, beckoning me to something deeper and much bigger than myself. Every goodbye will become a hello, every tear will become a smile, every hurt will heal, and every eye will finally see The Creator of the Universe face to face. Oh how I long for that day!
Until that Great Feast, the Wedding Banquet, the Day of our Lord's return, I will longingly await for my eternal home, and the perfection it will finally bring.
This Christmas season, I am reminded that Father's Son is no longer a baby in manger, He's not a broken man on a cross, He didn't stay in the grave, and He's not staying in heaven forever- someday He's coming back FOR YOU AND ME!
I would say that you have a gift. I have become more guarded over the years and many moves. It's kind of sad, but sometimes I think: "Why bother..." ...investing time and energy in relationships that I know are only going to be existing on facebook, or not at all, in a year or two.
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