changes of sort

I thought I hated change, but I don’t. In fact, I thrive on it. I love new foods, new friends. I like to change my clothes when I get home from something, even if they are not dirty or uncomfortable. I like trading old things for new-to-me things. I like new experiences. I like resetting my ipod and filling with a new set of music. Change is great. What I hate? Goodbyes.

I hate goodbyes. I think I always have. Although I have matured slightly and don’t throw temper tantrums when leaving my friend Katie Hurley’s house anymore…I still hate them in a profoundly pervasive manner. I get sad when TV shows end. I don’t like reading the last chapters of books because I don’t want them to be over. I love when far away friends visit, but get really mad when they have to go home. When my best friend went to Israel for the semester, I pouted like a small child for a couple months and made a paper “count down to Stephanie” chain and would make my friends “make a trumpeting noise” when I ripped a link off each day.  And the bigger the goodbye, the harder it seems to be.

This past weekend we found ourselves at one of my dearest friend’s going away party- one last official get together before we send her off into her two year service in the Peace Corps. I say “found ourselves” there, because that’s really what it felt like. One minute we all lived together, and were talking, praying, crying, over rushed cups of coffee and 50 page senior thesis papers, about what our plans would be, what post-graduation life would hold. I feel like I blinked, and all out of no where I have graduated, am living in the Bev, and working as a mental health counselor- where as last I checked I was just RA ing at Gordon and writing papers about counseling. Last I checked my friend and I were running out the door with our travel mugs of coffee talking about how she thinks she might apply for the Peace Corps. And while I witnessed many of the steps of her process, I forgot it meant she was actually doing this, that she is leaving for somewhere, for a significant amount of time.

And so last night, after many “remember that time when…” funny stories, last second signing of cards, and a final game of apples to apples- we had to leave, and realized it was something resembling goodbye. I did not know how sad I was until all of a sudden I am crying like none other – a state of being that continued well into my drive home (which is awkward when going through toll booths, mind you).

Among a million other life lessons that I am learning- I am struck with one thing. I get so sad when I say goodbye, and hate missing people more than most other feelings- and I am a person, whose love is infinitely smaller than our God’s. He has a jealous  love for us, and wants us to run to Him, He wants us close.

Now if I get pouty when TV shows end or cry like a seriously injured child when my friends go on long trips, how much more does God, in His love, passionately seek us when we are walking away? Luke15 tells us that when one is missing, God seeks after them until He finds them, and then He celebrates. How crazy is that?? Jesus cares enough about us to come after us, and could not be more excited when we are with Him.

So the moral of the story:

I love change. I hate goodbyes. I love my friends. And I am blown away by the love of the father.