Saying Goodbye

I remember the first time I left for the U.S.. It was so sudden that my dad had to pack the rest of my stuff in my room and ship it after me. I never really got the chance to say goodbye.

Then a year later I returned to Singapore, only to leave again within a year and a half.

During the past few years whenever I came back for a visit, it was usually a short one- the longest being a month.

This summer was the longest stay, totalling three months.

Now that I've got three days left before returning to the U.S., I'm starting to think about the goodbyes I never got to really experience.

I suppose back then I was too caught up in my own wild world to be sad about such things. But I feel as if knowing Christ has changed many things.

For one, as I told Eileen earlier today, I used to dislike babies. Even up until I was 18, babies were always stinky, noisy, annoying wrinkled creatures. But by the time I was 20, I thought babies were the cutest blessings on earth.

Another thing I notice now is that saying goodbye is suddenly very sad to me. I started to think about why it didn't use to hurt leaving people behind and came to this conclusion: before Christ, my heart was numb so I could never truly love. Since I never truly loved, I didn't know how to appreciate people for who they were.

Now that I know Christ and He lives in me, I feel my frozen heart has become unfrozen. That's why I like babies now. That's why saying goodbye is painful now when it didn't use to hurt at all; and that's why I don't wear as many black things as I used to.

I take this as evidence that God is changing my heart... He is taking the remnants of my spirit and sewing an entirely new creature. I don't know what the outcome is going to be like, but I am confident that it will be awesome for God's glory.

Because through God, all things are possible.

Among Christian brothers and sisters, I know goodbye is just a word- because we live in God's timing, which is eternal. We'll all end up in the same place eventually anyway.

:)