Today I said goodbye to my house and my family. I hopped on a plane headed to Atlanta with my 70 Liter Pack and my daypack. I don’t think it has quite set in that this goodbye is going to last a year. This goodbye was the first of many hard goodbyes. Every month is going to be followed by goodbyes… and this is the hardest part of missions for me.
I know everyone has their own answer to the question of the hardest part of missions and I am sure the answer changes with time, but I find that the continual hardest part for me is having to say goodbye. Goodbye to family and friends, goodbye to new missionary friends each month, goodbye to the sweet little boy or girl you bonded with, goodbye to your teammates you’ve cried, laughed, and grown with. Missions are full of goodbyes, but then again so is life.
Something I have learned through missions and my life on mission is that I am so grateful for the opportunity to have people to say goodbye too. I am so grateful that I get to walk in partnership with God and love people in Arkansas and all over the world. As hard as the goodbyes are, they come from the blessing of getting to know, love, and be known/loved.
So as I work through the first difficult goodbye of many, I look forward to the many, many more I will have to say because that will mean I was blessed to have any amount of time with the people who enter my life. When the time comes to say goodbye, whether I see them again or not, I will always get to cherish the time we did have.
Thank you to all of you who made it possible for me to partner with God in international missions and be blessed by many wonderful relationships. Thank you for the time we have had. I want to encourage everyone, myself included, to cherish the time we get to have with each other and the people in our lives. These times are the best times.
Love y’all and see you in Costa Rica!
But for all of those goodbyes, there was such wonderful hellos to lead you to them. Always look forward to the next hellos, because those are so special.
Instead of “goodbye” you can say “I’ll see you in Heaven if not before”!