leaving dayton

I write this entry on the night before I leave Dayton. Eerily I recall earlier a conversation from earlier today. A friend said to me, “We won’t miss you, but you might miss us.” I haven’t even started packing and yet I’m sad. They say that home is where your heart is. If that’s the case, I can understand why it saddens me so to leave. When you have to move your home, in a weird way you have to move your heart too. We thrive on change, we love new things. Yet, part of us loves the beauty of the way things are. It reminds me of being a kid. I wanted to be just like dad, I had a little plastic lawn mower that shot out bubbles. I would push it all around the yard trying desperately hard to be like him. Still, I enjoyed being a kid and playing in the sandbox for hours, painting with my fingers and playing with our puppy in the backyard. I’ve been saying goodbye to my friends here in Dayton over the course of the weekend. In some of the relationships here, I find that we’ve moved apart. Time has worn the commonalities that held us so close together into a fine thread that now seems stretched. In other relationships, the first pages of our adventures as friends are starting, as a good book that you’ve just finished the intro to. Still, in other relationships it is as though nothing changed at all. Amazingly in these relationships it is as though we’ve never aged.

So I sit at the dinning table and remember the past weeks, the anticipations, the fears, the joys, laughter, sorrows and silences. It is sad in general. I’m going to miss the people I work with, the people I play with, the roommate I fart with. The people I share life with. Then I think about the future at hand. Life doesn’t end at death. For some, their rejection of God will be bitterly more sorrowful than anything experienced on earth. For others, their acceptance of God will bring the abundance even more fully than experienced here. I am trying to cherish the relationships and opportunities I do have here. To savor the life that God has given us. He never asked us to numb ourselves, only to sacrifice that which would take our joy from us. The price has seemed too high for many. They walk away clinging to their rusting skates, buying into the lie, unwilling to trust the only one who can save them from themselves. I too want to cling to my rusty skates, but I know I can’t. I press forward, enjoying that which I was blessed to receive while here. I press forward, knowing full well that loving God must always stay my true wellspring of life. I press forward, finding more of God’s blessing lying ahead. Maybe even my old skates. Maybe even in better condition. Or maybe God will do something completely different. Whatever He should chose, my life is His to use.