Five Minute Friday: Good-Bye

I'm back to write for five minutes flat on a Friday.

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1. Write for 5 minutes flat on the prompt- no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
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Good bye...

START

Oh, boy.  You should have seen the tears well up in eyes after I was asked, "What's the 5 minute Friday word for today, mom?"  I often make my kids do 5 minute Friday with me. Not sure if they are up to it today.

Good-bye. I have said that word more times that I would ever want to count. I've also missed opportunities to say it as well.

Moving as often as we have has enabled me lots of practice saying, "good-bye." Sometimes so much practice that I don't want to ever say, "Hello."

I didn't get to say good-bye when we left Tennessee. After mom got sick and it was decided that we were supposed to move to NY to help out the family Glenn drove back down by himself, got a lot of help from our awesome Sunday School class to pack up our stuff, and came home.

We prolonged our saying "good-bye" when we left Houghton by returning often during those first weeks because church was "on the way" to or from somewhere.

On arriving in Rochester I didn't want to say "hello." I intended NOT to make friends while we were living there because we were only going to be living there for a year while waiting to get into medical school. (OK - timer ended but I'm going to keep writing so this is going to be more than 5 minutes - don't shoot ;) My plan didn't work out since we were soon invited to a small group at church and made many friends at what is now Northridge Church. We also ended up being there for 2 years, not one. Good-byes happened there when our group multiplied but that just meant that we had the opportunity to make more friends that lived closer to us and we still often saw our friends from our old small group at church.

Moving to Syracuse meant saying "good-bye" to those Rochester friends. I was kind of excited moving to Syracuse and the prospect of making friends because we were going to be there 3-4 years. Friendships looked different in Syracuse than I planned. Not bad. Just different. I made good friends there. We made friends with neighbors, something we had never really done before. We also made friends with many homeschool families. Then, 2 weeks ago, we had to say "good-bye" again.

Now we're in Lowville for 9-10 months. Having a definite "we're outta here" date would normally keep me from wanting to make friends BUT.... over the last few months God has used many of the writers at (in)courage in my heart that have been writing about how important it is to have friends in real life (including Ann's post from yesterday). Facebook friends are great but they are not enough. So, even though "good-byes" are inevitable and soon, I am going to try to make friends because friendships are important.

One of the doctors Glenn is working with gave me the email addresses of some women who homeschool in the area and also invited me to come to a Bible study with her. I went on Tuesday night and got to meet a couple of the women who homeschool. The Bible study is one of those hard ones where they ask you difficult questions like: How is your relationship with your husband going? How are things going with your kids? Are you spending time reading the Bible and praying? What temptations are you dealing with lately and how are you doing with them? Ouch. I haven't been asked questions like that in a while. I think that it will be a good thing and I think that I'll make friends. I was also given the email address of another homeschooler who directed me to 2 others who live here in town, one of which called me whose oldest is an 11 year old boy and I am meeting up with on Monday for a playdate. (My kids are tentatively excited because they have been "soooo lonely" but their poor hearts have walls around them too because of so many good-byes.)

"Hellos" are difficult and "good-byes" are painful but relationships are worth it. I know that God has a reason for having us here in Lowville for this season. I pray that we make the most of the time He gives us here for His honor and glory, until the next time of good-byes when we get to start the cycle all over again.