Feeling the pain of saying goodbye? It’s a sad but inevitable part of life. But there is great comfort in bringing that pain to our heavenly Father, and in being united to our brothers and sisters all over the world.
I stood at the back of church and broke down in tears…again. I’ll tell you why.
Alex and I have been serving at a small international church in Busan, South Korea for almost seven years. At our church, we have mainly three groups of people: expat families on work assignments, English teachers, and international students. All three groups often stay between two and four years, and very rarely longer than that. This means we say heart-wrenching goodbyes regularly, maybe every other month. It’s somewhat ironic – as the church grows in love for one another, we cry more often because of our inevitable goodbyes.
Where can you turn when dear friends are torn away from your life? You no longer benefit from their tender, loving, truthful counsel in times of trial. In our desperate state, we turn to God in earnest prayer. A friend read out a prayer at yet another goodbye meal recently which touched my heart deeply. Here is an excerpt from ‘A Liturgy for Leavings’ from Every Moment Holy, Volume 1:
‘Grant, O Lord, that we might take
our leave of one another now,
feeling a right joy for the blessings
of the hours we have shared,
even as we feel a bright and
hopeful sorrow at their close.
Friends and saints and fellow pilgrims,
we part now in the confidence that in our
diverging paths we walk the same road,
fanning the same flame, and that in time
we will meet again in a fellowship forever unbroken.
By your Spirit, O Christ,
make us faithful in the meanwhile,
as we go out to labor in the diverse fields
to which you have assigned us,
laboring unto that better meeting,
and unto that new-made world
that is yet promised and that has already begun.’[1]
As she read out this prayer, I was struck by two things. Firstly, the prayer has such a hopeful tone! We have ‘bright and hopeful sorrow’ and we can be confident of the fellowship that will be forever unbroken. We will have a better meeting in a new-made world. We are not to be swallowed up in despair and sadness.
Secondly, this hope then led me to delight in us ‘fanning the same flame’. Wherever we are, we have the same Christ, same purpose, and same final destiny. Our lives will all look very different, but we also share the same work of fanning the flame.
As I write this short reflection, however, I do not want to presume that I know your sorrow in saying goodbyes. You may be saying goodbye to a good friend, a new Crosslinks mission partner as they leave for their mission work. You may be saying goodbye to your children as they leave for university. You may even be saying goodbye to your dying loved one. I’m only certain that we all go through heart-wrenching goodbyes in some way.
If you are going through another goodbye in your life, would you like to bring your sorrows to him in prayer with me? If others do not understand, God does. Every single person on this earth turned away and said goodbye to him at some point. So, to save his chosen ones, he said the hardest goodbye on the cross – God the Father abandoned his Son, Jesus. Because God suffered the worst goodbye, we do not have to face the ultimate goodbye with God. When the world despair in their hopeless goodbyes, we have the only true hope of reunion.
And let’s together keep praying for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ in our goodbyes. Isn’t it wonderful that we fan the same flame? Crosslinks mission partners on the other side of the world fan the same flame as you. We will not see fully how we are fanning the same flame in this world. Yet, one day, that flame will be brighter than the sun and flood the whole world with the light of salvation. We will rejoice in our perfect reunion with the Lord and with one another. Please keep fanning the same flame where you are, and please help us in our fanning of the flame through your prayers even as we remember you fellow pilgrims.
Kate and Alex Phillips serve in pastoral ministry at an international church in Busan, South Korea
[1] Douglas Kaine McKelvey, Every Moment Holy, Volume 1 (Nashville: Rabbit Room Press, 2017), p. 247.