Saying Goodbye

It is hard to say goodbye when you know someone is entering into less than ideal conditions for a specified period of time. The difficulties from placing a life on hold are more than enormous.
We often start the list with the children who are affected. They will do without frequent relationship with very important individuals that are not there for them. There is also the community of friends and extended family that continues on and learns to live without the individual except in reference or casually asking how they are doing.
The lives lived in two separate worlds only connect at the point of deliberate maintenance of the relationship. The inconvenient phone calls interrupt schedules which both sides may feel the other should have known and honored. If those events are forgotten it may be viewed as a lack of concern for this individuals world.
How do you say goodby?
You just put your hand on their shoulder and you pray for them to go with God and for them to see His hand at work in their new situation. This matter of blessing someone with the presence of God and blessing of prayer is the greatest and most loving act you can do. Then you continue to pray for them and their family as you prove that the reason it was hard is that you are a true friend that truly sticks closer than a brother.

You are more>>>>>>

I am glad for many of the modern tunes that I get to hear on the radio daily. I love the theme of You Are More. When we are remade by faith in Christ we are definitely made into more than the sum of the past would dictate.

In the Celebrate Recovery Meeting we hear the great stories of each others past lifes. Each person shares with an honesty and directness that would make church people on Sunday uncomfortable. The reason they can be honest and direct is that they have been directed by God to share the past. When the past is properly shared we get to see God at work even in the most hardened heart and desperate life. Then we also have hope that God is at work within the happenings of our life.

No matter where we are and what we have done God can take us and remake us into something beautiful when we have been living in the junkyard of life. Then and only then do we realize what a miracle salvation is as we become more than we ever thought possible by the grace of God at work in us.