Not Good at Goodbye

For years, I said, “I don’t say Good-bye, I prefer to say see you later.” Some of this may be because for 15 years my family and I lived in an RV travel trailer. For 13 years, it was the only home we had! We were in full-time, itinerant ministry, so the RV kept our family on the road together. Notice the word, itinerant. That means there were a lot of good-byes.

In those 15 years of traveling, we met amazing people and saw God do amazing things! As the Bible was opened and messages on grace, humility, forgiveness, calling believers back to their first love of Jesus Christ were preached and obeyed, the Lord transformed lives. Seeing Jesus lifted high and all people drawn to Him kept us out there for 15 years!

If we ended on a Sunday, we had a week to travel to and set up in the next church. Those off-weeks were a sweet gift. As we took time to set down the burdens we had been carrying, give the people and prayer requests back into God’s hands, it opened space for us to pick up the people and needs in the next church where God was calling us to go. Because we were spiritually and emotionally invested, the break between churches allowed us to rest, breathe, heal and let the Lord fill us up before we were pouring out again.

I am again facing another ending, more good-byes and another move. Tomorrow is the last meeting for the group of Parakaleo ladies who have met in my home for the last nine months. Our house is currently on the market. We are moving to St. Augustine, Florida to plant New City Church. While knowing that every group and season ends, this ending is hitting me harder than I expected.

God didn’t create us to experience endings. In the garden of Eden, God didn’t intend for the perfect lives of Adam and Eve to end. They were supposed to keep walking with Him in the cool of the day, experiencing oneness with each other and with the Lord. But sin and the fall of all humanity changed that. The first man and woman were asked to leave the only home they had ever known. Because their life and time of perfect fellowship in a perfect world ended, so did ours.

We were made for eternity, no endings, no good-byes. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, He has set eternity into each of our hearts. One day, when God recreates everything, there will be no more endings. We will enjoy God and each other in a perfect place forever. Until then, because we live in the now and the not yet, we all face endings. We often have feelings about endings- either celebration that something is finally coming to an end or grief because we are experiencing loss. Our hopes and dreams may be ending because we haven’t seen the redemption that God has promised just yet.

So as I’m walking through yet another ending, I’m hoping to navigate it with a lot more of Jesus and His grace. I need Him! He is the only One who will never leave and He never ends! I’m asking Him to help me notice and name what I’m feeling. I’m asking Him to help me name the transferable gains and the unexpected losses. I’m hoping that as I commemorate and grieve this ending, it will allow and prepare me to enter the new season God is inviting me into. Instead of holding tightly to what I’ve had, I’m asking Him to help me loosen that hold and with open hands receive what is next.

In 2021, we said good-bye to Gospel City Church, a church we planted in 2008. God did some amazing things at Gospel City! Jesus was lifted high, HIs Word was preached and lives were changed! We were so spiritually and emotionally invested that it has taken some time to set down the people, burdens and prayer requests. These three years out of local church ministry have reminded me of the RV itinerant travel days between churches. He has been letting us breathe, rest, heal and filling us with Himself so that we can partner with Him to build another church.

While I don’t know who my next group of Parakaleo ladies will be, or when our house will sell, or what new house we will buy or the pace at which New City Church will grow, God does. I’ve watched him show up with powerful grace for the 33 years that I have known Him. I have a Bible full of men and women who have experienced endings, grace and God’s faithfulness. So as this chapter ends, Father, help me loosen my grip and open my hands to what is next.