We'll miss you.

We said good-bye to dear friends yesterday. We avoided the actual parting words, but could not escape the wrenching of our hearts. Why? Why do our lives continue to weave in the color and vibrance of others only to have the garment ripped and left ragged. No, they are not gone forever.... There's e-mail, Skype, and Facebook - numerous ways to communicate in this age of internet and cell phone technology. But things will never be as they have been these past few years. We will not be the same. Change. To live fully means to embrace change, internally and externally. Some times we have foreknowledge and make efforts to prepare; some times it catches us totally by surprise and knocks the breathe from our bodies.

The following is a favorite quote about change (from a favorite movie, You've Got Mail).

"People are always saying that change is a good thing. But all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all... has happened.... In fact, someone, some foolish person, will probably think it's a tribute to this city, the way it keeps changing on you, the way you can never count on it, or something. I know because that's the sort of thing I'm always saying. But the truth is... I'm heartbroken."

It seems that in overseas life, people come and go with painful regularity. Every school year one or more of my boys loses a good friend (including this one). May we face our losses courageously, with genuine and appropriate grief; while at the same time keeping an open heart to the lessons of love and faithfulness we learn.

Butterfly with Daisy by Juliet Chase