.: coming to terms :.

(Excerpt from article for MH Newsletter)

I think I am slowly but surely getting the hang of these "goodbyes". It seems like every place I go, the inevitable end haunts me throughout my entire stretch of fellowship and adventure. And of course, as a wise person once said, "All good things must come to an end." But no matter how many times I am confronted with the closing stages of something that has felt real and deep and personal, I often find myself somehow scrambling to try and make it last well into wherever the Lord takes me next. Truth be told, I don't care much for the thought of never seeing again those who have become so close to me in so little time (heck, who is, right?). But at a deeper level, beyond the uncontrollable tears and swiftly spoken promises of future reunion, there remains a profound celebration for having been here, which is often strangely matched with an anticipation for the future... come what may!

In all honesty, who would really want their old experiences (no matter how enjoyable they were) to be played out over and over and over again? The thing we would really hope for is typically something even beyond those vivid memories - something that would make an even deeper impression upon our souls. And in reality, maybe the fear (if it really made itself known to us) is that of never being sure we are where we were meant to be. Maybe we are really living in between the "possibilities" of real life... life as it was meant to be lived... the life we were designed for. We are a children that have been cast from Eden (Genesis 3), who are now wandering through this "desert life", hoping for glimpses of what used to be. We were built for fellowship - no wonder we cry when we stand to lose it. We were built for honest relationships - no wonder we shutter when they are threatened by distance and time. And we were built to be unreservedly loved by others - no wonder we grieve the loss of those who seem to have offered that to us in such genuine ways (if even for only a little time).

For myself, I am only now beginning to find beauty in the process and tremendous splendor in the journey. And rather than experiencing the sense of loss, I am becoming someone who is able to rejoice in parting from close friends for the sake of potentially discovering something new that both echoes past encounters, as well as offers me a place to continue to thrive and stretch and flourish... in new ways! And so we celebrate our time together this summer, knowing that we have come only steps further in our excursion towards becoming more like the Son, but having found a joy (deeper than all our sadness) that springs from the fact that we are living lives that are able to possess borders beyond "bottled experiences".

For those of you who feel like I am discounting the sorrow of moving on, please hear me clearly. I will miss you all, though undoubtedly some more than others (go ahead... curse me for saying what we are all feeling), and there are moments and mental images from this summer that I will carry with me for the next couple years (even one or two that will haunt me up until Heaven). But I am more greatly excited for what lies ahead for all of us who have irresponsibly rejected selfish caution and the charade of creating a life that we can control... and who have thrown our lot in with the One who offers life to the fullest (John 10:10). I fear that I would only be selfishly thinking of what I might lose if I somehow fought to keep you all here. And no matter how sad we may feel in the coming days and weeks, none of us would truly want that! For we are those who constantly long for more, in the hopes of finding something that endures!