Planes and Trains and Cars Don't Fix Everything

Like most Sundays, today after the service Jennifer and I hung out in the auditorium as long as possible, catching up on the week. 

I’m going to miss those conversations. For a couple months I’ve known she and Jordan are moving to South Florida to start a church from the ground up. There’s a good possibility they’ll be leaving sooner, rather than later as originally supposed, since Jordan’s getting a good (well deserved) response from prospective employers.

I’m only 20, but I think I do have the right to call Jenn and Jordan old friends. I’ve known Jenn since I was 10 and she was about 12, a good 4 inches taller than me. The height difference changed rather drastically, and circumstantially we’ve been through thick and thin…but in the end, she’s always been there, my crazy yet mature, 2 AM giggling buddy. As to Jordan, we met when I was 13 and going through that “I don’t know how to relate to boys anymore so I’m just gonna withdraw” stage (confession: still going through that stage most days). He somehow became a good friend and co-conspirator anyway, showed me that saying hello and talking about school and playing round after round of Settlers didn’t mean we liked each other and had to get married.

I’m going to hate saying goodbye to them. Don’t even get me started on saying goodbye to the rest of my Slack family.

But I wouldn’t, for the world (okay, well, maybe the world), hold them back. Leaving, embarking on a new mission, is what they are supposed to do. It’s so dang hard, but I’ll let them go. Besides, it’s not like we don’t have “planes and trains and cars” (Grand Central Station still doesn’t shine as bright as you, Jenn).

Not gonna lie, I’m getting tired of saying goodbyes. There’ve been so many this year—to beloved people, beautiful places, pretty things. 

I’m far from being the only one. Loss is perhaps one of the more shareable human feelings. We all hurt from losing something.

We do need to keep a stiff upper lip. I might be tired of losing things, of saying goodbye, but it’s gonna keep happening no matter what. The effect of taking what was not ours in Eden, is having to constantly give up, to lose, to say goodbye—to remind us that this is all still not ours.

It’s His. He gives and, perhaps more frequently, takes away. Blessed be His name, because He does know best even when I don’t think He does.

I don’t think it’s best that I have to say goodbye to Jordan and Jenn in 2 weeks or 6 months from now. I don’t think it’s best that my heart has to hurt from missing all 17 SBI girls and 1 Garrett. I don’t think it’s best I had to leave the lane and friends who live in the Pennsylvania hills. I don’t think it’s best that the group of friends I shared a campfire with growing up, won’t anymore. I don’t think it’s best when I or people I love have to suffer physically. I don’t think it’s best when parents have to say goodbye to children. I don't think it’s best that children are abandoned by parents. I don’t think it’s best that children in Germany are taken from their parents because they were being homeschooled. I don’t think it’s best that life is cut tragically short, or that friendships are ended because of sin, that families are separated by oceans. I don’t think it’s best that churches fall to pieces. I don’t think it’s best when husbands don’t come back from the office, or from war. I don’t think it’s best that people get older, frailer.

Truth transcends what I think. In the eternal scheme of things, I’m told this will all be justly, mercifully beautiful in the end.

So for now, I’ll do the only thing any of us can: plod along this cliché, dusty road. I’ll hold hands with the people I can, when they are near, before God takes them from me. Let’s not be ashamed to cry up a storm and turn the dust to mud—it’s going to happen over and over again. But even as we make the mud puddles, there’s always, at the same time—because of Jesus and only Jesus—reason to have a stomping dance party in those very same puddles.

That’s the end of my silly little metaphor that, like everything else I say, I’m sure has been said before.

Dang, that rhymed. 

While I’m on a roll, I’ll leave you with what has been my favorite CS Lewis quote for the past 4 years: Christians NEVER say goodbye.