Where Is God When It Hurts To Say Goodbye?

I slowly scrubbed the soapy sponge against the plate as I held it under the running water. My mind wandered through the events of the night and I remembered the moment we prayed for life direction for a dear couple friends of mine. As I thought about all the possibilities that lay ahead of them, I was surprised to find that tears had suddenly filled my eyes. Although I was happy for them as they followed the next steps God had called them to, the thought of them moving away made me sad.  I knew that goodbyes were inevitable, and I knew that God would continue to sustain me even in the absence of friends I missed. But at that moment as I ran through all the times God had brought me through goodbyes, a realization hit me:

Knowing it will be okay, doesn’t make it hurt less.

The wonderful hope of the gospel is that no matter what trials we face, we know that the story ends well. No matter how many times we say goodbye to homes we love or the people that make us feel the most at home in their presence, we know that one day we will sit in our eternal home. We will want nothing. We will need nothing. All will be well.

This we know for certain – and this is our hope.

Even in between the chapters of our life, we know that God sustains us and comforts us through even the hardest goodbyes. When our world is shaken, our normal is shattered, and the ground beneath our feet gives way – God is still on His throne. When all seems unstable and transient, God is unmoving. When all seems to change, sometimes without notice or time to transition, God stays the same.

When our world is shaken, our normal is shattered, and the ground beneath our feet gives way – God is still on His throne.

This is why the Psalmist describes Him as a rock and an anchor. This is why the two words He calls Himself are so comforting: I AM. There are times when I don’t even know how to identify myself. In these moments when the things or titles I use to describe myself are stripped from my grasp, it is the very fact that I AM is that calms my anxious heart.

It was as I pondered these thoughts that another thought entered my mind. It was this thought that caused my hand to stop scrubbing the pot I was washing – the thought that made all other thoughts come to a halt as I gasped in a quick breath:

Jesus knew it would be okay in the end – but that didn’t make it hurt less.

For some reason my churchy Christian self had the perception that somehow Jesus’s knowledge of God’s plan made everything he faced a breeze. Have you ever caught yourself thinking a similar thing? Life must have been easy for Jesus because He was, well, Jesus…right?

This is a lie. Jesus was a human just like the rest of us. He felt emotions as deeply as we do. And knowing that everything would turn out alright in the end didn’t make the momentary struggle any less painful.

Knowing that he was the Son of God didn’t make it hurt less to be the kid that all the other neighborhood kids made fun of. It didn’t make it less painful when his brothers and sisters resented him for being the perfect child.

Knowing God was in control didn’t make it any less of a struggle to be overcome with exhaustion, hunger, and thirst in a desolate desert for forty days. And it definitely didn’t make it less of a temptation to say yes to all the things Satan dangled in front of his weary eyes.

Knowing God was speaking through him didn’t make it any less sad every time the disciples just didn’t get it. And knowing God’s power was moving through him didn’t make it any less heart wrenching to feel the bleeding woman’s tug on his cloak or see the tears flowing from Jairus’ eyes.

Knowing God had a plan didn’t make it any less heartbreaking to hear that his dear friend Lazarus had died. And knowing that the prophecy was being fulfilled didn’t make it hurt any less when the disciple that he’d spent every day with betrayed him for thirty pieces of silver. It definitely didn’t make it any easier to be tortured and slaughtered at the hands of the Roman soldiers while his friends cowered in fear.

Betrayal brought no less pain. Goodbyes brought no less heartbreak. Death brought no less greif.

All the worst moments we’ve faced in our lifetimes were no easier for Jesus himself.

In fact, I might even argue that they were harder.

I think back to my senior year of college. At this point I was one of the only Seniors on my dorm floor. The majority of our girls were underclassmen. Most seniors I had met, whether through necessity or fear, often became very distant in their last year of college. As that last year of my schooling began, I understood why.

When you know the goodbye is coming, it makes it more painful to engage.  

Despite my fears, I decided that I would engage fully until the day I left. So I went to every event, I hung out with friends every chance I got, and I made myself available in every free moment I had.

This proved to be even harder than I’d expected. Every wonderful moment with friends became bittersweet with the thought that this would soon be merely a memory I missed. These people that I talked to every day would soon just be faces on my newsfeed. The sweet community I found on my dorm floor became harder to hold onto because I didn’t want to feel its absence so deeply when I left. I didn’t want the void to be so noticeable. If I just weaned myself off now, I could protect my soft heart from the pain of a million goodbyes. But even in that, my distance would hurt those who I left behind.

Choosing to love hurts sometimes more deeply than protecting yourself from feeling the depth of that love. When we open ourselves up to loving as deeply as God calls us to, we also open ourselves up to heartbreak and hurt.

When this hurt happens over and over, it can be easy to ask: Is it worth it?

I answer this question with a question:

What would have happened if Jesus decided to love the disciples any less because they might betray him?

What would happen if he loved Lazarus less? What would happen if instead, he distanced himself so that the goodbyes wouldn’t hurt as much?

I think God calls us into the hard times sometimes. I think he has some goodbyes for us in this life that will tear our heart in two. I think he asks us to love all the way. He asks us to risk being hurt sometimes and trust that He will sustain us no matter the outcome.

But here’s the good news in all of this: He did it too. He knows how much it hurts. And he knows that just because He promises all pain will cease one day, that doesn’t make it hurt less today. This is why it “tis so sweet to trust in Jesus” – He knows what’s at stake when He asks hard things of us. He’s not calling us into the unknown recklessly or ignorantly. When he asks us to say goodbye to dear friends, to places we’ve known, to identities we’ve worn, or even to other anchors in our life, he asks us to do it compassionately because he’s felt those same emotions. He’s said the hard goodbyes and left familiar places. And because he knows, we can cling onto him even stronger. We can be comforted even deeper. We can be known by our Savior even more fully. And because he was not spared from the hardest moments we could imagine facing – We can trust Him completely.

That’s what He calls out to you today. “Trust me, I know the pain, the hurt, the anguish. And I know that you are held by someone greater than it all. Trust me.”

Will you?

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

John 16:23

(Hi Redmond.)