The Best Goodbye

What have I learned about saying a good goodbye?
I have learned, a good goodbye is not found in a heartfelt phone call or text to that person you’ll probably not meet again. Neither is it in the tear drop of the waving hand. If say a workmate whom you liked a little  too much than a colleague and respected a little too much as a friend recently resigned, the best way to let them know how you feel about them is NOT by reaching out to them for closure. The best goodbye is NOT in drafting them a love letter or holding his/ her hand on a coffee date and pour your heart out…

I adjure you daughter of Jerusalem, do not stir up love or awaken love until it pleases [Solomon 8:4]

The best goodbye entails putting all your thoughts, ideas and sentiments into one context – acknowledgement. Admit those feeling of loss, salute those moments of laughter, of sadness, of victory and triumphs, of self-doubt and conceit … salute those moments of realness that were composed in your friendship. Consciously feel that moment, in minute details… And, as the memoirs and the realities scorch your heart, clench your fist in prayer and talk to God. Yes. Enter His courts with praise and bless Him for the good, bad and the worse that y’all experienced with each other …and in His presence, undress yourself one thought at a time.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name [Psalms 100:4]

 … Because (in my opinion), what shall it benefit a man if you write/ talk to a person whose merely human? The heart is deceitful, our minds or forgetful and our ways are untrustworthy. Rather than wasting a beautiful emotion, your emotion to mortal man – speak to God. Speak to the Great I Am. Speak to the Alpha and the Omega. Speak to the one who was before there was. Speak to the one who knows both the known and unknown to the known. Speak to the one who construes the devices of man and establishes their plans. Speak to the Great I Am.

Rather than jotting a heartfelt text or letter, rather than making a phone call that can potentially confound a heart and potentially crack/ break a home… Speak to the One whose love was willing to give us His ONLY Son to die for you and I. Stand in the gap of whoever this person is [in a reality you probably don’t know] a disheartened employee who got fired? A former Christian loosing hope? God’s workmanship in need wisdom? A downright sinner in need of grace? Stand in that gap and let everything you feel fuel the sincerity of your prayer. Tell God to forgive him/ her for his/ her transgressions for we have ALL sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. Stand in that gap as a child of God and ask Him to make the promises accorded to Abraham also true to you; ask Him to bless this person like their presence blessed you. Bless his/ her future. Pray for wisdom especially in places he/ she does not know. Bless them with the whole of your heart.

The bible reminds us in Mathew 7:7 ‘Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened.’ What I’ve learned about a good goodbye is that it entails conveying your purest sentiments on fertile grounds and what better way than finding closure in God?

For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds and to him who knocks, the door will be opened [Mathew 7:8].