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Goodbye

Goodbye

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (Revelation 21:4)

Our son is approaching two years old, and already he is a great theologian. In fact, he may know almost all he needs to know. Yesterday, as I made a last ditch effort not to forget anything on my way to work, dodging past truck and tricycle to reach the door, he said with waving gesture and careless smile, “Bye bye daddy.”

It was in my car that morning that bye, bye, daddy overwhelmed me. “He almost knows it all,” I said to myself. He knows sin and need. I pass it on to him as my father passed it on to me. It has been passed down the crooked line all the way from the day that started this business of decline, a day where creatures became creator, a title stolen through vying for rights to handheld fruit (of all things).

My son knows goodbye. My heart aches heavy for a shelter that will protect him from goodbyes, but it was ransacked with the close of Eden‘s doors. There is no shelter. Now, found wandering, we dread departures for they are the preliminaries to funerals. Life has boundaries that are only a raised with the first glimpse of eternity, the fairy land where goodbyes are hushed by welcomes that have no aches.

He knows goodbye, and not even the dawning of new technology can lighten his load. I hope our son’s knowledge of goodbye will cast only temporary shadows in that understanding might lead to wisdom that takes route in him who shouted,”Hello!” from His perch of ascending cloud sometime ago. This hello still frightens man-made sons with their Babel fist raised in ignorance. May my son always welcome as a friend He who is the shelter, a true lamp that guides feet and gives light to paths.

Dig Deeper:

Today, notice the number of times you say “goodbye,” and may it cause you to notice further how time really has an end. Find comfort in Revelation 21:4.

Prayer:

God, I often think morality is for everyone else. Teach me to rightly count my days and to use this particular day for Your purpose and not my own.

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