Goodbye's

Saying goodbye is almost always hard, hard when you say goodbye on the first day of kindergarten or when your plane to college starts taxiing on the runway to take you far away from home.  Hard when you've had a great time with your parents over the weekend, hard in the morning when my husband pulls out of the driveway. Hard even if something new and exciting is on the horizon.  I have never liked them-goobye's.  Even saying goodbye to a year on New Years Eve, has proven difficult for me.

There is something about the present I easily embrace...it's familiar, known, & comfortable in that way.  I love to live in the now.  I am so thankful for the now.  When the now changes, it's hard for me to adapt.  My dear, sweet Addie is wired the same way.  On Monday, she said goodbye to her first, best, and almost only friend.  My heart broke for her, wishing for one of the first among many times to come, I wished so deeply in my heart I could shoulder her pain, cry her tears, and feel her loneliness for her.  It's so sad and hard when you're 7 to learn that some good, special things come to an end.  Sometimes those good things change in a way that will never be the same.  It hurts to let go and find something new to get a hold of.  That's a truth in life, that never gets easy.  Life just keeps going-keeps changing.  There are days I wish it could just stop, stop so my heart could catch up or pause long enough for me to get a hold of the new-to walk around in it for awhile.  Whether you are 7 or 72, I think there are moments in life you wish you could call a "time out,"get your bearings, acclimate without the clock ticking, and then press on ahead.  Sometimes it feels selfish to move on, somewhat disrespectful to the past-as if moving on somehow ceases the appreciation and love for it, the past that was just your very happy present.

Pray for Addie's sweet broken heart, that is just trying to catch up. Maybe this New Years could be a goodbye to the old and be thankful for the new around the corner.  Pray for her "new," that God would pack it with his tender mercies.  We miss her uncontrollable laughing around these parts :)

Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness!"  Lamentations 3:22-23