Life Is Just A Series of Good-byes

Was feeling very sad yesterday after dropping the latest team off at the airport. It seems like my life anymore is just a series of good-byes, that's my job, saying good-bye. Of course, that's the pessimistic view. For every good-bye there has to be a hello, a new connection, new friendship. But it's still hard. I realize the alternative is to live in a vacuum of neither good-byes nor hellos. That doesn't sound very appealing at all, like a living nothingness. So I'll take the good-byes along with the hellos, but I don't like it. And anyway, why does hello have the word 'hell' within it?

I hardly got to know this current team, there were 13 of them, and I was in Greece for three out of their ten days here. Maybe I didn't bond with them very well on purpose. The team before them was the first team that I helped with. There were only four of them. I worked with them almost everyday. It surprised me that it was so hard to say good-bye to them. So I steeled myself against this team, which somehow made it even harder. Now I'm sorry that I didn't get to know them better, didn't even bother to learn all of their names, like they weren't worth it or something.

Then I thought of Jesus. He traveled a lot, so He probably also said good-bye a lot too! How did He handle it? For one thing, He prayed to His Father at least daily. For another, people were not an idol to Him. A cursory glance through the book of Matthew has Jesus on the move, even in the womb and as an infant. As an adult, Jesus was constantly moving, strolling throughout Galilee, Judea, and Samaria, being temped in the desert, walking across lakes, hiking in the mountains with His buddies. Not once does He say hello or good-bye. He does say “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” It just occurred to me that He didn't say 'I will be with you' in the future, but He said 'I AM with you always', now. Cool. Jesus IS with me always, with US always! Oh how sweet it is to say hello to Jesus, knowing that I will NEVER have to say good-bye to Him!