Dumb and Dumber anybody? I remember this being my feeling, leaving for college. I'm not sure why, but its always has been easier to leave a place than to be left. As the perpetual traveler, I'm usually the one leaving. ADVENTURE COMPLETE. NEW ADVENTURE EMBARKED: CHECK. I'm pretty sure I left for college with those exact words for my parents "Well, see ya later!" (ok, they may have demanded a hug…)
Leaving Minnesota for Oregon/travelling contract therapy work 2 years ago was the first really hard good-bye. The hardest part about leaving Minnesota then was not necessarily saying good bye to my dear friends but saying good bye to this chapter of my life that I loved and wanted to stay in FOREVER! Now mind you, I am not a crier. Average 1-2x/yr (a good year). I wept. Until Fargo. That’s when I felt the arms of the Lord wrap around me, His words comforting me. "I know you are hurting but I am with you. I am weeping with you." The acknowledgement of Him understanding my hurt (I may or may not have been telling Him how unhappy I was with Him making that chapter end to begin a new chapter) was comfort beyond measure.
He had quite the plan for the new chapter.
Fast-forward 2 years. Very different, very difficult goodbyes. Saying good-bye to my parents last week was more difficult than I ever thought it would be. Well, I was fine until I felt my dad tremble (I get my non-crier-ness from him I think). An hour into the drive away from their place, I felt lighter.
Fast forward to the next hard good bye. Four beautiful little girls and their kisses and sweet words of "I love you Auntie" and "I will miss you so much" were more than this heart could bear. Next, the tightest embraces from women, friends I have respected and admired from the moment I met them, knowing I won’t hear much of their wisdom this next year. But an hour into that next drive, I felt lighter yet.
It was as if with every difficult good-bye I felt more a release to this amazing adventure the Lord has for me. Mark 10: 29-31 promises that "…there is no one who has left house or bothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, house and brothers, and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life."
Honestly. How does one get a replacement for a 3 or 5 year old "I love you Auntie Sarah" along with a slobbery kiss? If one were to have a competition, my nieces would win in the best hugs competition, no questions asked. Just sayin. Or my best friends who know me better than I know myself, who I can just sit next to on the L-chair and just be, no conversations needed and yet can give the wisdom I need to hear (maybe not want to hear…)
Yet, the Lord promises a new family when I leave my own for His glory. I have 56 new brothers and sisters and especially 6 new amazing women who will be (and already have become) sisters. And so many "children' and 'mothers' and 'fathers' to love on and be loved on by these next 11 months.
Thank you Father for having a better plan for my life than I had.
