Matters of Interpretation

The Preacher says there’s a time for everything. You know: “A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance,” etc. etc. Ecclesiastes 3. “Turn turn turn.”

A time to meet, and a time to say good-bye.

We’re adults, we understand, we do. We understand that people can’t live in two or three places at the same time, that it isn’t practical to commute eight hours each way on the daily, that choices have to be made. We respect those choices, people’s hard choices, for all the right reasons, with discernment. We’ve been there, or, maybe not there, but somewhere like that.

Love means we want what’s best for people.

What’s best for the other people, too, not just ourselves, and not just what feels best this minute.

We know, in our heads at least, that you can’t always call it a bad day … just because it hurts.

And we trust God, of course, though that’s easy to lose sight of sometimes, and though we’ve had our share of experience with where that kind of trust can take us. We mean it when we say “everything will work out,” but we know how strenuous getting through those workouts can be.

If the good-byes are the dues we pay for the relationships, the friendships, the shared lives …

Relationships we wouldn’t want not to have had. Friends we wouldn’t want never to have met. Lives that wouldn’t have been the same …

So, I couldn’t call it a bad day …

But it hurts.