Two kinds of good bye

We are saying good-bye. Packing up our little family. Putting familiar things into cardboard boxes. Sealing them shut with nasty packing tape. Dreading the thought of tearing through that plastic frustration to get our stuff out again. Our life is a bit upside down. The house looks like it's been ransacked by a clumsy burglar who was uncertain of what he should take and what he should leave. Odd combinations of things sit in a pile waiting to be put in a proper place. Normal household chores have been put on hold while we wade through the disjointed contents of our homey house.

This saying good bye is somewhat easy in the grand scheme of things. We have control over our going. We get to choose where we'll live, what schools our children will attend, what side of town we'll live on. We can even decide what furniture gets to come with us and what item will be written up in a hastily posted ad on kijiji. We get to leave as a family. Our physical home displaced, if only for a short time.

We have time to say our good byes too. Emotions hover somewhere between excitement and grief. Those bidding us good bye are sad at our parting but they wish us well. Tell us what impact we've made. Tell us how it just won't be the same. We echo these sentiments. Loving relationships are our common thread. This leaving is difficult, purely from the emotional side of things.

But there is another kind of good-bye. The kind that leaves nothing but sadness in its wake. The one that just asks more questions then there seems to be answers. One that leaves a sense of incredible loss, something has been undone and can never be put back to rights. A hasty retreat in the unexpected. It leaves a lot of room for faith with its uncertainty. The pain is lasting. Frustrating.

Thankfully our leaving won't be so permanent as that.  Even though at times it feels very much like a death.  We will leave knowing that we have been faithful to our calling, obedient in staying and in leaving.