I think saying goodbye has been on our hearts more acutely in the past few weeks. We have shared several meals and moments with dear friends recently and last weekend took our youth on the annual kick-off-the-summer retreat. This year we went to the beach (hooray beach!!) and enjoyed lots of beach, pool, basketball, worship, and 1 Corinthians 13. Our little girls came with me and enjoyed lots of special attention from the sweetest youth group girls you can imagine. And, as always, we had a time of personal sharing in our girl or guy groups, and it was a blessed time.
And as each girl shared I wondered, how do I say goodbye to those beautiful faces? How do I lay down my desire to watch them grow and finish high school and college? How can I try to love another church family as much? There's no room left I tell ya!
And then, in sloppy and sentimental fashion, I ended the share time that night with telling them how very dear they all were to me. How I loved hearing them share from their hearts. How I think about heaven often during these times - it's not goodbye forever! We'll be praising Jesus together one day when we shall be face to face, when we shall know fully even as we are fully known!
And - with the ugly cry still on my face - I shared with them Luke 9:23 - 25 "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?"
Could I ask any more for these precious lives than they be lost in Christ so that they may be saved? That they would deny the temporal and fleeting desires of this short life and follow the path of their Savior? May it begin in me!
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