What Will Be
Friday, June 26, 2009 I’ve been busy this week preparing our move to America. “Busy” includes facing the loss growing inside me. I know what is coming, not only the loss and it’s grief, but the inevitable fading of the pungent pain, the way a flower’s fragrance slowly fades with it’s wilting. Faces fade away and cherished times tumble out of view; nothing I do will change that.
Time with age causes me to forget, not entirely but too much, many of the people I’ve grown to love. And they forget too. I know it is coming, the loss, like so many times before. Yet the thought just occurred to me: I’m returning, after ten years, to people and places I wasn’t sure I would see again. How will my faded memories meet them? Will we still know each other or will we be strangers of a sort?
Who can say what the future holds, really? Who knows, with all the plans I’ve made, what God has for me tomorrow, the next day, and the next? Aren’t we always thinking of the next day even on our last? How we mourn our loss even while a new day is dawning!
I’m sure, without a doubt, I was not created for death but for life. God had and still has someting better in mind.
Reader Comments (2)
From someone who is a bit older. Let me share my impressions:
If life is compared to a novel, then there are various and diverse chapters. For some of us, it is like WAR AND PEACE.
Your journey in England and Wales has been one of self discovery as you came to understand what God had in mind for the middle of your novel. The friendships and the ministry have prepared you for the journey back home.
It is difficult to say good-bye and lose those anchors which have settled into the sandy bottom of our comfortable sea. Paul must have felt the sense of sadness each time he had to move and say goodbye.
In regards to your journey, Thomas Wolfe was not correct. You can go home again, but when you return home, home will be as different as you are. The passage of time brings changes to individuals and places.
Memories are a good place to launch renewed friendships as you sail down old paths. Unfortunately, with time people change. You will find that some of them have no place or desire to rekindle a relationship. They are on a different journey, even perhaps, listening to a different drummer if I may toss in a little Henry David Thoreau.
You will never forget your experiences in Britain, especially the precious people.
For without the people, what would a pastor’s life be? Never forget them.
However, there will be new harbors where new friends and opportunities are waiting to be found. Those treasures are before you.
For I know the plans I have for you,
plans to prosper you and not to harm,
plans to give you a hope and a future.
Then you will call upon and come and pray to me,
and I will listen to you.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
(Jeremiah 29:11-13, NIV).
May your voyage home be one of safety and of divine import.
Take care, old friend.
"Look Homeward, Angel", did I read that one? I can't remember. No, it was, "You Can't Go Home Again", you referenced. I did read that but not in a clear time for me. I sampled Faulkner, O'Connor, Warren, Mansfield,filling up on Walker Percy, all while imbibing a few less literary things. Again, memories fail.
I know what you say is true. Sadly, the shock of coming "home", whatever that might mean to me now, will be as great as leaving this shrinking island. I'll need time to adjust, to heal. My life has been a tearing and mending, tearing and mending; the part I've played in both is less sure though real. As for friends, I'll look forward to our next meeting. So good to hear from you.