the weight of a thousand goodbyes

Matthew 6:10-

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 

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Ladies and gentlemen, tis’ the season. Tis’ the season of new hellos, new adventures, new places, new homes, new normals. New promotes growth-it takes courage to step into new things, a boldness I will always admire. 

I like new, I really do, but I’m beginning to realize that the new seems to always come at the cost of the old. So while it’s the season of hellos, it’s also the season of goodbyes. 

Like clockwork, it seems to happen every year. July rolls around and I begin to pack my things and prepare for the new adventure that August holds. This trend started as I left home for college in 2017. Leaving home for the first time broke me in a new and unfamiliar way. Leaving the life I’d known in a way was freeing, but also very frightening. But when I arrived in Virginia, all fear had evaporated from my body. For that season, I was where I was supposed to be.

But life happens, and seasons change, they end. By summer of 2018, I found myself in another series of goodbyes as I left Liberty. I had to say goodbye to the people I had fallen in love with, as well as the version of myself I always dreamt I’d be. 

After mourning these goodbyes I was greeted with ample hello’s in the fall and spring of 2018-2019 as I registered to do the World Race and meet my squad, I started a new job and my coworkers immediately felt like family. But as temperatures rose, and as August approached, I said goodbye again. Goodbye to the comforts of living in the US, and goodbye to my families-both work and biological. 

This goodbye was very difficult, but I quickly fell in love with the work and the people we met in Swaziland. But then three months later, with broken hearts and tear stained cheeks, we said goodbye to the children we’d fallen in love with and the country that’d always have a piece of our heart. We’d move on to Myanmar, this time only for a short month, but long enough to form emotional bonds that left us crying on the way to the bus stop after our goodbyes. Goodbyes were said twice in Thailand, each were as difficult as the last. When we arrived in Nicaragua we instantly fell in love, only to be sent home. With little notice, we had to say goodbye to the people that stood with us as we said some of the hardest goodbyes in the world for the previous seven months.

I arrived home and was greeted by tons of hellos. I went back to work, and fell even deeper in love with my work family. But now its August, and its time to say goodbye again. 

I say all this to say two things: First, I’ve said a lot of goodbyes in my lifetime. Second, they don’t get any easier. 

I hate goodbyes. I hate leaving people. If I’m being honest, this summer’s goodbyes are weighing heavier on my heart than I expected. On my last day of work, I came home and laid on the floor and just cried. I sobbed. Questions and thoughts filled my head. Why does it seem like every human relationship has an expiration date? Or why does emotional proximity with other people seem to ebb and flow? But the most question that weighed the heaviest…God why do you allow me to fall in love with people if you’re going to make me leave them? What’s the point of even having community if I’ll only have it for a short season? 

I fell asleep that night without answers, and in a lot of ways, I still don’t have answers. But the next morning at church I asked the Lord the same questions, and this time I heard Him say, “it’s a picture of Heaven I’m giving to you.” A picture of Heaven. How nice, God, but I hear there’s not a ton of goodbyes up there. He then reminded me of the Lord’s Prayer, specifically the part that says “on earth as it is in Heaven.”

The emotional connections and friendships He’s allowed me to make with His people is a picture of what I think Heaven will look like. On earth, as it is in Heaven. 

He’s a good God, isn’t He? He sure does have a way of answering prayer. He has allowed the image of Him that I bear to fall in love with the image of Him that others bear, and it’s taught me to fall in love with Him as a whole. Isn’t that the greatest of all? 

 

So I asked God what He wanted me to do with that little tidbit He gave me. He told me that now that I know these people deeply, I can better fight for them in prayer. I know it’s so freaking cliche, but think of how much closer Heaven would be if we actively, and diligently prayed for each other. I think prayer is the most powerful way to love someone. The other thing He wanted me to do with this is to love deeper. Don’t wait to love someone, don’t withhold goodness from someone, because the Father doesn’t withhold goodness from us. Don’t give into fear, but love someone in the same way you’ve been loved. 

This blog is kinda just dragging out forever, and I’m sorry, but I hope you know that you carry a beautiful part of the heart of the Father. And there’s a lot I don’t know, but I do know this. I’ve said a lot of goodbyes to a lot of people of different cultures. From liSwati, to South African, to Thai, to Burmese,Honduran, Nicaraguan, Mexican, American and everything in between, if this is just a picture of Heaven then I cant wait to see the whole thing.