I don’t know about you, but I hate goodbyes! They stink! It leaves you feeling empty, abandoned, lonely and missing something really important. I don’t care if it’s a goodbye for a day or a week or a month or a year, etc….I just don’t like them. I could go into the myriad of reasons for this detestation toward partings, but I’ll spare you the grief and share with what kinda makes me weirdly excited about goodbyes. What? Yeah, it’s something that I’ve just been thinking about today and it’s really helped me with saying goodbye to those I love. Here I go...

I am extremely comforted in the fact that God, my heavenly Father, was willing to say “Goodbye” to His Son Jesus. I was reminded of this today as I was studying for Sunday’s message. Paul wrote in Galatians 4:4, God sent His Son! That blows my mind and it chokes me up and it fills me with so much hope. Why? I’m certainly glad you asked otherwise this would be pointless. Follow me now…God was willing to send His Son into a foreign land where He would ultimately be treated with so much contempt that the people of this foreign land would murder His Son. That is love! Yes, indeed, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son!

But this would be fuzzy comfort without this further thought. In saying “Goodbye” to His Son, God knew (because He planned it this way) that He would see His Son again in only 33 ½ years. WOW! In other words, the separation was temporary, yes painful, but still only for a relatively short time in comparison to eternity!

Here’s my point, yes, I actually have one this week…Now whenever I say “goodbye” to someone I dearly love, I know that if they are in Christ I will one day see them again. The separation is indeed painful and it still leaves me feeling empty, abandoned, lonely and missing something really important, but I know that I will see them someday. I will see them in a place that is not hostile to faith and grace and love and God. The tragedy and real pain only comes when I say goodbye to those I love who are not in Christ. I will never see them in heaven and that really does give me pain. Remember, God so loved that He gave His only Son, but the verse goes on, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. Eternal life is only given to those who BELIEVE. God’s love demands a human response and that response is faith. Faith is what gets us back together forever. And in heaven there are no “goodbyes.” Now that’s AWESOME!!!

This just has me thinking this week…I hope it does you too!

Love Ya Lots!