It’s finally hitting me that I am leaving in a week. The family, the relationships that are in my life, that I have spent all my years building when I lived here long-term… Now I am leaving again for who knows how long. And the difficulty in that reality is sobering me up once again. It was already painful to see how my relationships with people at home were strained by distance and time this past year. Having the few months at home were definitely a gift from the Lord to reconnect where I could. At times, it even felt like, to salvage what I could. But even these few months are too short, and I’m left realizing that the relationships I have been re-cultivating, I must leave again and it’s…so sad. I am thankful though. He didn’t have to give me this time. Where my other staff members spent time in New Zealand for our staff debrief time mourning the homes they were to leave because God spoke clearly to not return to their hometowns this time, I am getting to that point. Instead of perhaps mourning the home I will not return to, this time I am mourning the loss of the relationships I have to leave here once again. I’m sad I will miss the babies being birthed, the engagements, the weddings, the new homes, so much. So much. That was one thing why coming home was so difficult. The cost of following Jesus is again so blatantly in your face.
Yes, Jesus is worth it. That question does not need to be re-evaluated, but the loss is still real and the mourning over the cost is necessary. I definitely can’t just toughen up and force myself to get over it, because God never wants that. The scab will still be there. But it’s the comforting by Holy Spirit that will heal and bring light and perspective to the hurt.
So God is re-evaluating my perspective once again and I am reminded by Him that each relationship in my life, whether deep or shallow, whether long or short, is a blessing He has given to me. And it is my choice how I cultivate it and how I nurture it. My choice whether I fight for it or allow it to fade. Of course He ultimately has the last say in the circumstances of how that will play out. But in this time it’s bringing it all back once again. It’s about love and it’s about relationships. Our relationship with God first and foremost but our relationships with people too. Apart from it, we have nothing else worth living for.
Least I know, in the mourning, I have walked through something Jesus had to walk through Himself on earth. And I have the privilege to help someone else walk through it too.
Merry Christmas!
