{thinking about goodbye...again}

I've started this blog entry half a dozen times in the past 36 hours.
Each time I rethink and delete it,
realizing how incredibly selfish it sounds (and is).

It just seems, though, that we've been in a seemingly endless season of goodbyes throughout recent years.
And my heart aches,
as I realize that this isn't likely to change anytime soon.

Now it comes again---
dear friends moving away---
and I'm tempted to throw in the towel;
to give up on friendship and loving and opening up my heart.
For when you love much, you hurt much.

Yet somehow God uses this dissatisfaction,
this all-too-familiar ache,
to lift my gaze to His;
to remind me that we weren't made for this world.

As good as it is to love and to be loved,
as sweet as the stuff of life can be,
sometimes it distracts me from my longing for Him;
for heaven.
I find my joy and satisfaction in what is temporary.
Fleeting.

As Jesus was preparing his friends for "goodbye,"
He spoke to them with these beautiful words of truth and hope:

"Let not your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God; believe also in me.  In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you may be also."  John 14:1-3

Apart, yet united,
separated, yet close---
we await that eternal inheritance.
Together we long and wait for that beautiful home God is preparing just for us---
the place where they'll be no more heartache or illness or tears or goodbyes;
the place where together we'll worship Him forevermore.

Hard farewells, temporary distance, aching hearts, and all,
I'm thankful for precious friends in this life who love, challenge, and inspire me to walk with Jesus.
And I'm thankful that we share the promise of eternity---
that one day, we'll all be Home where we belong.