Hard-Bye

“Trigger warning: Last blog I mentioned there were posts I had written in the previous year that were “unpublishable.” This is one of them. Every time I considered posting this, there was a new reason why I had to postpone it. People kept leaving and I didn’t want to post a goodbye blog right after someone’s exit because I feared it would come across as accusatory. I also have to be sensitive to our church congregation and confirm this is not a precursor to a resignation or plan to leave. It is an arsenal of thoughts and feelings that lamentably have been collected over the years. However, it is also an assemblage of love and deep fondness for all those behind every hard-bye. ”

Goodbye: a simple word used in polite discourse to suggest gratitude or to kindly put an end to a conversation or task. It is a word that loosely falls from our lips multiple times a day and we hardly even blink. But we know, even simple words can hold weight. Often, the word goodbye is drenched in the realities of separation and distance. Something or someone good in life is moving, leaving, transitioning, or changing and we feel the weight, the emptiness, the void.

Exits are part of everyone’s earthly journey. People and places exit our lives constantly. Some are involved in our circles only for a season, some are here until other doors open and opportunities arise, some are present until God moves them, and some are stable residents until their last breath takes them permanently away. The experience of a painful or abrupt exit often becomes a core memory; scenes etched in our timeline and replayed in memory. These hard-byes (a new, more appropriate word) apply to people and situations where a simple goodbye is insufficient. I think about every family that whispers a hard-bye to their military member as deployment papers are served. I think about the hard-byes parents release in August as they send their eighteen-year-old to college. I think about the hard-byes that are sobbed alongside hospital beds. The hard-byes of grandchildren moving across the country. The hard-byes of foster parents releasing back to the unknown the child they had grown to love.

These types of goodbyes require ridiculous levels of faith and grit. They leave us changed, too. We become bearers of scars, disjointed vessels holding out hope, whispering desperate prayers…because we cannot control the hard-byes. They come whether we are ready or not: one friend gone, two friends gone, family moved there, job closed here, dream shut down, acceptance denied…an onslaught of goodbye.

Recently, someone said to me, “This is why I don’t get close to anyone. If you don’t let them in, you don’t feel bad when they leave.” True. Very true. But it is a sad way to live. Because, before the hard-bye, there were days of good memories: laughter over coffee, worship at church, men’s basketball league, school pick-ups and drop-offs, summer camps, dinner out, sweet embraces during hard seasons of life, prayer over text messages…glorious moments of good that make the goodbyes so hard. Memories never had if the heart wasn’t open to making new friends, loving people deeply, or living life with others.

So, I love others, knowing I may have to release them. Friends will move states, jobs and success will be temporary, dreams will shift and look different than expected, family will return to the mission field, and church members will exit without saying much or anything. I try not to be hardened. I try not to fall into robotic rhythms of “here we go again.” I try to feel the pain of the hard-bye because it means some very good experiences made this goodbye so difficult.

Yet, sometimes, trying fails and I find myself deeply saddened and broken. Closeness loses its closeness when proximity is lost. Phone calls and texts feel impersonal when they replace in-person connections. Those gone find new life in their new place. Goodbye is hard. Hard-bye is even harder.

There is an intimate moment in Acts 20 when Paul is saying a hard-bye to his partners in ministry in Ephesus. By the language used, one can hear the despair in the goodbye. He explains this may be the last time he sees this group of friends because the Holy Spirit is moving him to Jerusalem. His friends “all wept as they embraced him and kissed him” (Acts 20:37). They cried together even though they understood the Spirit was calling Paul elsewhere. When God moves us forward in life, we are often overwhelmed by conflicting emotions of excitement and grief. This is where I repeatedly reside: in the teeter of blessing others and letting go and mourning my loss and holding on.

It's another form of sacrifice. I have to let go of myself. Let go of my selfishness and my desire to hold people too tightly. Let go of control and let God move people, dreams, and jobs. If I had my way, I’d have a long list of people I’d require to live within thirty miles of me. Forget that they are where God has called them and set them up to be lights on a hill. Forget that some jobs and schools need their presence. Forget that God previously moved me away from others who preferred I stay. This sacrifice thing is hard. Relinquishing myself so God can call people out, forward, and beyond my limited sight is not easy. I feel things hard and I love people deeply. I do not like being on the other side of a goodbye.

Of course, it is initially harder when people leave in unhealthy ways. When they run away because the current is too strong, the winds too fierce. When they believe they have found something easier or shinier elsewhere. These exits wound differently and I have to self-monitor my heart, batting away bitterness and blame. We’ve likely all written an autobiographical escape plan at one point in our life, forcing hard-byes when they were unnecessary. I suppose this is part of learning how to discern the Lord’s leading and recognizing our choices leave a wake behind us and sometimes those we love get caught in the crossfire.

Lord, help us discern the move of the Holy Spirit in other people’s lives. When those we love feel a call elsewhere, may we respond with joy at their obedience and gratitude for the seasons of time we had. Our grief is real and signals our deep care, but may our sadness never hold back those whom You have called forward to a greater purpose. And may we be similarly aware there are times You ask us to remain, to stay, despite what we feel may be better elsewhere. Give us all the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.

To my friends, all the hard-byes in recent years, I love you from this distance. While proximity and consistency are challenging, please know I pray for God’s continued grace and favor on you. He often brings you to mind. And when He does, I smile.

Until next time my friend,