weary of saying goodbye

Picked up a bicycle from the classified ads last night ... I kinda like it now that I've peeled off all the stickers, and cleaned it up a bit. I rode it to work this afternoon, and I can tell some new muscles will need to be built ... but it's definately do-able. I plan to ride it back again for prayer meeting tonight.

Got in a walk last night, but not to the gym (due to an appointment to look at the above-mentioned bicycle).

I've been thinking about goodbyes. I hate them. There have been far too many funerals lately, and dear ones moving away, missionaries going back to the field, nieces far away whom distance prevents me from knowing ...

This is one where He can identify with us. "For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross." That joy is us ... being with us one day ... and He's waiting for all His own to be together.

The idea of heaven having "no more sea" is a precious one - a preacher I liked (he's gone too!) talked about the sea as a picture of separation. In heaven, there will be no more saying goodbye to dear ones, no more separation due to distance, or misunderstanding, or busy-ness.

There's a quote from C.S. Lewis that I like very much. While it's talking about time, I think it applies here too --

Quoted from a private correspondance from C.S. Lewis:

A wish may lead to false beliefs, granted. But what does the exitence of the wish suggest? At one time I was much impressed by Arnold's line 'Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.' But surely, tho' it doesn't prove that one particular man will GET food, it DOES prove that there is such a thing as food! I.e., if we were a species that didn't normally eat, weren't designed to eat, would we feel hungry? You say the materialist universe is 'ugly.' I wonder how you discovered that! If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it you don't feel at home there? Do fish comlain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures? Notice how we are perpetually surprised at time. ('How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up and married! I can hardly believe it!') In heaven's name, why? Unless, indeed, there is something in us which is NOT temporal.