Let's Get Away From This Place

I’m not really good at goodbyes. 

I don’t think I know anyone who actually is. 

They are often awkward, and there are usually some sort of tears. 

We say goodbye to people so often here. 

There are so many people who come in and out of here so quickly. You experience Jesus with them, sometimes it’s for the first time that the familiar light of Christ is reflecting in their eyes. It’s a beautiful, heart breaking week. 

Then there are people who you’ve known for years that God calls away. You deny their next move as the lingering days seem shorter. Before you know it your bags are packed, they are shouting your name for a final boarding call as your best friend stands there in a puddle of tears.  You release the death grip you have on each other and don’t look back. 

NEVER LOOK BACK. 

That only causes more tears. It’s like putting a fresh bandaid on to a wound that’s still gushing blood. You’re just going to have to rip it off again. 

As I get the news that a very dear priest friend is leaving my home parish I found myself in a puddle of tears. I’m simply trying to compose and email to thank him for the man of God he’s been in my life for the past ten years. Know that God is guiding is every move brings peace to my heart. 

He would constantly joke with me that I was going to enter religious life. In a recent conversation with my Mom he told her “No matter where I am I will come to the profession of her final vows. Or if she gets married I will be there. Whatever will make her and Jesus happy, I will support”. 

Gosh, I am so blessed. 

This goodbye seems harder than most because I literally don’t know when I will see him again. He’s moving a few hundred miles away from my home town which adds thousands of miles between us. I pray one day that I can go serve in his home country of Nigera. 

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” Mathew 28:19