Learning to Say Goodbye – Sunday, May 24, 1998

Learning to Say Goodbye – Sunday, May 24, 1998

Life teaches us some of its most important lessons by forcing us to learn to say goodbye.  At almost every stage of mortality, the nature of life itself causes us to move ahead—sometimes without the people, the places, and the capacities we once enjoyed.  Because such events are inevitable for all of us, we must develop the faith and the fortitude to be stretched and strengthened each time life asks us to say goodbye.

Some of life’s goodbyes are joyous graduations.  From childhood, changes come as we leave behind the simple and the familiar to accept new responsibilities and opportunities.

Other ways in which life teaches us to say goodbye are more painful because they require us to give up a part of ourselves.  Over time, we learn that age, illness, or circumstances can force us to abandon activities that were once very important to us.  At times we may even struggle to complete tasks that we once accomplished with ease.

Of all the many ways life compels us to say goodbye, the most difficult may be when someone close to us passes away.

In all of life’s trials and transitions, it may help to remember that the expression “goodbye” is actually a contraction of the phrase “God be with you.”1 And in all life’s goodbyes, God will be with us.  His timetable may not always seem convenient to us, with our limited perspective.  His objectives may not always be clear, but we may rest assured that, through God’s mercy and power, our goodbyes will not last forever.

Our Father in Heaven is not the God of goodbyes, but the God of reunion, rejoicing, and life everlasting.  He will help us through the turning seasons of life until the promised day arrives when He will reunite “friends on earth and friends above,” when all that was lost will be found, and when death and goodbye will be shallowed up in his everlasting love.

Michael W. Middleton

1John Ayto, Dictionary of Word Origins (New York:  Little, Brown and Co., 1990), p. 259.
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May 24, 1998
Broadcast Number 3,588