The Pain of Goodbye

Let me start by saying I would like to punch almost every goodbye in the face. I say almost, only because there are some times I am very ready to see people gone. Other than that select group of people I am going to self righteously declare deserving of my wrath, I generally want people to not leave. Separation is painful. Whether it's divorce or a physical wound, when things that were meant to be together are forced apart, it hurts.

Because my fiancée lives several hundred miles away, I regularly have to say goodbye to her. On one such occurrence when I was in a particularly poetic mood, I penned (or rather "typed on my phone") this line:

I'm convinced that the curse of human existence exists most complete in the pain of goodbyes.

I stand by that. I do believe a general survey of your friends, or coworkers will reveal that the most painful times in their lives were at the loss of a lover, loved one, or friend.

Relationships are a messy business, mostly because when your life rubs up against someone else's for more than a moment, your soul reacts like a scoop of ice cream: you can still separate with your core intact, but you inextricably leave some of yourself behind. The separation is only made more impossible and painful the longer you are together--like two scoops of ice cream slowly melting into homogeneity.

I think this pain at separation is what makes redemption so beautiful. If division is the greatest human pain, then redemption, resolution should be the greatest human joy. It's why movies with reunified families or nations or friends or lovers may not get the highest critical acclaim, but they warm your heart better than a mug of hot chocolate.

People don't often appreciate redemption in this life because, in one sense, it isn't realistic. We live in a world where redemption is not commonplace among humanity. Depravity leads us more often to disunion. But that is God's greatest gift, that when the shadows of this life are over, we'll be welcomed with into the one place that has been torn most fully from our being by the Fall--the arms of our Creator.