Last
week I casually greeted a friend who, unbeknowns to me, had just come from her
good friend's cremation celebration.
Her
response to my, "How are you?" was to share where she'd
been that afternoon.
Later
I went back and asked her for more details. Her response was along
the lines of: "I'm feeling a little knocked over by loss. Three of my
closest friend gone in just a couple of years." Two moved back to the US
for various reasons and the third passed away last week. I'm grateful for her
realness in sharing what was going on in the background, because I never would
have guessed otherwise.
Then
on Friday David and I discovered that another family from the school community
is moving back to the US before Christmas. I saw them on Saturday at the
cross-country meet and asked them about what seemed to be an untimely move
(middle of the American school year) and they said they were moving against
their will. They have two high school aged daughters, one of whom is friends of
one of our sons.
The
background of their move is in this story:
The Southern
Baptist Convention will cut as many as 800 employees from its
overseas missions agency to make up for significant shortfalls
in revenue, officials announced Thursday (Aug. 27). The
International Mission Board anticipates an annual budget shortfall of $21
million this year, following several consecutive years of shortfalls. The
developments are particularly painful for a denomination that was founded
as a missionary-sending organization and that prides itself on
making Christian converts across the globe. “Over the
past six years, the organization’s expenditures have totaled $210 million more
than has been given to it each year,” the board said in an announcement. ”Sure, this
is not an ideal step but quite frankly there are no ideal steps at this point,”
said International Mission Board President David Platt on a conference
call with journalists. (From here.)
It's
a shock to hear of such a dramatic move by a mission board. It certainly will
have huge impact across the world, not just that hundreds of missionaries will
cease ministry in the countries they've felt called to, but those families
are connected to many others. That's a lot of grief and loss!
Grief
and loss is an integral part of life. People move, friendships don't survive,
and people die. But the grief and loss that are part of the the missionary life
(or other itinerate work like military) is greater than for those who live in
the same place for most of their lives.
I
didn't understand that early on in our journey down this road. it isn't just
saying goodbye to people you love in your home country, but frequently saying
goodbye at this end too because our friends move often too.
We
pick ourselves up and move on, because that's what we do, but this grief and
loss remains with us and becomes part of who we are. Those of us who are
"left behind" continue on and try to support one another as best
we can.
But
in the end our comfort can only really come from knowing that our real home is
in heaven:
For
we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a
building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human
hands. Meanwhile we groan,longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly
dwelling. 2 Cor 5:1–2 (NIV)
Heaven, where
there will be no grief or tears.
3 Praise be to the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given
us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish,
spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are
shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is
ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly
rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer
grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of
your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by
fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is
revealed. 1 Peter 1:3–7 (NIV) (Emphasis mine.)
If
you're interested in other times I've written about grief and the
missionary life, here are a few: