Good-byes

The past three weeks have been heavy with good-byes - good-byes until the next time and good-byes until the next life. With the expected coming of graduations and the recent school shootings, this topic has been weighing heavily on my heart. I think the long process of considering these things over the past month can be well summed up with an excerpt from Henri Nouwen's The Inner Voice of Love:

"When you 'love' someone or 'miss' someone, you experience an inner pain. Bit by bit you have to discover the nature of this pain. When your deepest self is connected with the deepest self of another, that person's absence may be painful, but it will lead you to a profound communion with the person, because loving each other is loving in God... 

Death or absence does not end or even diminish the love of God that brought you to the other person. It calls you to take a new step into the mystery of God's inexhaustible love. This process is painful, very painful, because the other person has become a true revelation of God's love for you. But the more you are stripped of the God-given support of people, the more you are called to love God for God's sake. This is an awesome and even dreadful love, but it is the love that offers eternal life."

The Inner Voice of Love, Henri Nouwen (63-64)

It all started when I first discovered I was going to be saying good-bye to a cherished friend a year earlier than expected. I felt that pain. I was angry. I wanted to accuse and blame him for not handling the situation better. I wanted him to apologize and make up for it. But most of all, I didn't want to say good-bye. After the anger passed, I found myself feeling an immense sorrow - 
I... did not want to say good-bye.

Then as finals ended and graduations ensued, in my head, each "good bye" and "see you later" was followed with a "but until when...". Each resulted in more and more of that inner pain. And as I read this excerpt weeks later, it is apt of Nouwen to say that all these good-byes are "painful, very painful, because [those people have] become a true revelation of God's love for [me]" (64). I loved and delighted in being able to fellowship and share life with these people, and now life is moving on. Did (Do) I trust that the constancy of the Lord was (is) enough? 

Without enough time to properly reflect on this set of good-byes, I was shocked with two tragic university shootings, occurring only one week apart from each other - one of which resulted in the death of my high school classmate, one of which resulted in the death of an acquaintance of a friend I'm visiting. And with these good-byes, I don't think that they necessarily fall under the category of pain that Nouwen describes in the excerpt above. However, there is still a very heavy pain that comes with thinking about the passing of these young men, and there is an aspect of grappling for the Lord's presence. 

It isn't the same gaping hole that one may feel when considering the lack of "support of people," but more so the gaping hole that comes in having to once again ask oneself, "Do I trust that through all these things, God is good? Do I trust that somehow He emerges - nay, has already emerged - victorious in the midst of tragedy? By the grace of God, can I find the strength to continue to pursue Him whole-heartedly?" 

And it's easy to want to say no. It's easy to discount all the testimonies and revelations of God's love for me and His people. It's easy to want to shut down and wallow in humanity's sinfulness. It's easy to want to brush it under the rug and live as I've always lived. And even now, I don't know how to continue properly living my life while also properly mourning these events. 

However, I do realize that even though I don't really have any answers at this point, I still have to continue living life. So when it comes to "until next time," I have come to understand more sincerely in my heart to see that "absence does not end or even diminish the love of God that brought [me] to the other [people in my life]". I'm beginning to learn to simply appreciate those times that God spoke to me through these people I have to say good-bye to and to see that they have helped me grasp a deeper understanding of the Lord, all without getting stuck in that inner pain. When it comes to "until the next life," I am still grappling to understand what it means to trust in His promises, but I know that I must hold onto the truths He's given me. 

I may be finding myself slowly taking uncertain steps into unknown territory, but I am steadily finding it clearer that though "dreadful" at times, this "is the love that offers eternal life". May I come to take joy in this painful process. May I come to see it as a lens through which I may focus in on his inexhaustible love. 
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P.S. I have not written anything cohesive for... quite a while now, so I apologize if things don't exactly flow well. I've been proofreading this for awhile now and have decided to just leave it as is even though I'm not really satisfied with how it reads, but WOTEVS - just means that I have to start blogging more regularly again haha. Thanks for bearing with me.