I pretty much threw a temper tantrum when I found out this second set of friends were leaving. It was hard for me to believe that God would take away from us yet another kindred spirit kind of family. I had such a difficult time talking about the subject immediately after finding out the news that by my silence I ended up deeply hurting my dear friend A's feelings. Praise God, she is wonderfully forgiving and we were able to share our hearts with one another and come out even better friends than before.
I love A for her sense of humor, her deep desire to be in God's will, her honesty, her diverse abilities and knowledge, her wisdom and gentleness in parenting and her refreshing transparency.
 |
| A and I try to smile as we say our goodbyes. I am wearing the beautiful scarf that A made for me as a goodbye present. |
The M children are kind and funny and are wonderful friends to our kids. The Smith kids, too, took it hard when the M's left.
 |
| Of the kids, Evan took it the hardest, but he did a great job sending I off with a smile on his face. |
 |
| Mixed emotions on departure day. |
That God used me, in a small way, to introduce these two families to the job opportunities, some 16-hours by car away, seemed tragically ironic and not at all the way I wanted this friendship story to end. He gave me a beautiful, exquisite gift by bringing these two women into my lives and then, in essence, he used our very friendship to take them away from me.
Time has passed and God has been working on me; I now know that what I thought was tragic irony really was God's loving plan to intersect three families' lives and use that for His eternal purpose.
I have also learned that God is asking me to love him first and foremost. I need to know that if God removed every single loved one from my life, I would still love him and wouldn't despair because he is always with me. We sent our friends from Virginia to Missouri. God sent his son from heaven to earth. We said goodbye to our friends expecting that their work and ministry would bring them great joy. God sent his son knowing that he would be mocked and scorned and then suffer and die a criminal's death. I threw a temper tantrum about what was happening with my friends. God, in his great love, chose to send his son so that by his death, he paid the price for our sins (including my temper tantrum). And by his resurrection, we can know that our friends in Missouri, and all our friends in Christ around the world, will be with us in eternity some day. And that, dear friends, is the perfect happy ending to every friendship story.
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. I John 4:9-11
