Embrace the Good-Bye

As much as I hate it, life is full of good-byes.

One of the hardest part of life is growing close to someone, sharing your laughter and tears, trials and joy and sometimes shame and regret, only to have that person removed from you life.

Yesterday I skyped with a sweet friend of mine and old roommate in California.We started talking about change in our lives and in the lives of those close to us. It was nice to be able to share with each other heartache that change can often bring but also the new blessings that so often come with new opportunity. Me and this friend once shared a house together with a few other girls. All of us became wonderful friends and it is a sad feeling knowing that although great memories were made, our lives are all going in so many different directions. I have a few friends getting married this year, some others moving out of state or even out of the country! Changes are hard, but necessary in life.

We both confided in one another how we struggle with trusting God when it comes to these changes and good-byes. It can be a sad and scary feeling walking into the unknown and we are both feeling these effects right now in our lives.

My friend sent me a blog post that she wrote upon moving from Chicago to California for the first time.

" Before moving forty-five minutes west at the age of fourteen, I had to say good-bye to my neighbors, my friends, my home. Nine years later, I had to say many more good-byes. This time it included twenty-seven piano students and their families, twenty-one foster children and their families on my case load, a secure job and many great coworkers, not to mention my own friends and all my family, the city where I had lived for years and knew so well. Essentially my whole support system was left behind me as I made the trip to California. I have made it evident that I do not like change. I do not like leaving my comfort zone. So these many good-byes were very challenging for me. And each time I return home to visit, only to have to say good-bye again a few days or weeks later, it is just as challenging. But one thing I’ve learned since my life-changing move is that sometimes you must embrace the good-byes.

Not too long ago, a close friend of mine gave me some great but extremely challenging advice she herself received from someone close to her: love deeply, hold loosely.

I told her I have the love deeply part down, but the hold loosely part is what challenges me most. As people become close to me, as we invest in each others lives, it becomes easier and easier for me to care about them, to pour into them, to give up a part of myself while loving them deeply. But as this thing called life continues on and takes people down different paths, letting them go is very challenging for me. What if I don’t want to hold them loosely? What if I want to hang on tightly, not willing to see them go, not willing for the relationship to change?

Oh, but what if by holding loosely, surrendering what, after all, is not really even mine to grasp, allows me to gather in my open hands something I could never have imagined? What if Jesus is holding behind His back something far greater, just waiting to give it to me once I hand over what I so desperately cling to?

And so I keep returning to these friend’s words of wisdom when I am reminded that life is but a vapor, things are always changing, and relationships are not exempt from that.

Nobody in a healthy state of mind would willingly choose pain and sorrow on themselves. Not unless they knew something good would become of it. Despite the pain and sadness the good-byes bring, there is a positive in them: new hellos. Because I was willing to hold the relationships in Chicago loosely and surrender the changes to God, since moving to California He has blessed me with so many amazing people I never would have had the chance to meet had I not been willing to say good-bye to the many people in Chicago. Families I have babysat for, people at my church, women at my Bible study, friends at my community group, and roommates in my new home have all made an impact on my new life in California, enriching it, and blessing it.

I have been loved, challenged, and encouraged by the relationships that have been formed in my new dwelling place. And while it doesn’t take away from the relationships I desperately miss back in Chicago, I must remind myself some good-byes are only temporary. Many of the relationships in Chicago will last a lifetime no matter where I am living. And even if the farewells are permanent, I must remember those relationships too had an impact on my life and molded and shaped me into who I am today. And that will never be lost.

So my advice to you: when the time comes, learn to embrace the good-bye, as difficult as it is. Because not only does it bring new hellos you otherwise may never have had, but when the time comes to say hello again to the ones you know and love, it makes the encounter that much greater."

Appropriately when I woke up this morning
I found my devotional entitled
Pain With A Purpose.

Again God was comforting me about the many,
sometimes painful, changes in my life.

The other day I sat on the floor in our basement,
looking through old childhood and family photos.
Of my parents, my brothers, old pets.
And I couldn't help but feel sad.



(Me and my two brothers)

In my devotional a women talked about
the most difficult time in her life being when
her first son was born. It was a long and
painful labor. But looking back she said she
considers it joyful,

"Because the pain had a big purpose."

Change may be hard, sad and painful sometimes.
But it can also have a big purpose.

Here's to brighter days!

- This blog post was co-authored by Shauna Potrawski