.ALOHA.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead 1 Peter 1:3
Tonight I was at my brother's senior basketball banquet. Just as the evening was coming to a close, the coach mentioned the word ALOHA which came to him as he looked at the beautiful flowers they flew in from Hawaii to decorate the tables for the evening! Fancy I know! But it hit me, there and then, the perfect reflection of that team of basketball players, of the life lessons they have faced over the past year, and of the life lessons we all seem to come to know over our lives can be summed up in the word ALOHA, hello and good bye.
All of our lives are a summation of beginnings and endings. Marked are these moments in our life and everything else, who we are, who we become, who we encounter, develops from these moments. The classic example of a beginning is birth. A natural ending, death. Everything that flows in between is a subtle example of these major moments in a person's life. For me, for most perhaps, endings are something to dread. I was always the girl to cry at the end of Christmas and birthdays because they were over, ball as I had to say good bye to grandparents after their visits to our house, and, as ridiculous as it sounds, hate the last day of school. There's something I cannot stand about things coming to an end. I've never liked endings and I might never come to particularly look forward to them, but what I've come to see as I've watched that basketball team and as I've seen events in my life over the past days and months, is that it's only through the endings we face, that we can begin once again!
Think about it, at some crossroad in your life you had to make a choice to end your former ways of life and begin a life centered on Christ. That is a beginning and ending that occurs in my life continuously as I make the choice to end my former ways and begin again to live my life in Christ! Reconciliation is this transition of ending and beginning made concrete. We must say good bye to our sins to say hello to the grace of a God who constantly allows us to grow through each end and new beginning. ALOHA, hello and good bye.
There are so many times in our lives where we must say good bye to things, people, or dreams before we deem ourselves ready. And in the moment we resist these good byes, challenge them or even refuse to say them. I know I do this all the time. And we think that everything in our lives is so good and so perfect that it can't possibly be time for an ending. God has better plans then we do! And sometimes the only way we can start a new and beautiful beginning that God has in store, is to say good bye to that very thing we try so urgently to hang on to. Maybe for you it's a bad habit, or a draining friendship or relationship, or a fear of the unknown. Maybe it's a small good bye you need to say or the most life-changing good bye of your life. Sometimes we have to choose to say these good byes in our lives and sometimes they hit us like a ton of bricks and come in the form of things we have no control over! Regardless of what they are or where they come from, good byes are difficult. But take hope, behind every good bye you face, is a coming hello!
Even in death, God has promised us a new beginning of eternal life. Shouldn't we find some solace, some joy, and the true purpose of our lives in that very idea. For, as long as we have a true and amazing Savior, we will always have an awaiting hello. We shouldn't live dreading the endings but looking for hope that awaits us behind every closed door! There will be plenty more good bye moments in my distant future. As I encounter these difficult moments and as you encounter these moments in your life, I pray that we stop to recognize, in our sadness, in our hurt, and in our fear, that through these moments of loss, God is closing doors to open new and more beautiful ones for each of us! What if we changed our way of thought? What if instead of seeing every good bye as an ending, we saw it as exactly what it was, an ALOHA!
Tonight I was at my brother's senior basketball banquet. Just as the evening was coming to a close, the coach mentioned the word ALOHA which came to him as he looked at the beautiful flowers they flew in from Hawaii to decorate the tables for the evening! Fancy I know! But it hit me, there and then, the perfect reflection of that team of basketball players, of the life lessons they have faced over the past year, and of the life lessons we all seem to come to know over our lives can be summed up in the word ALOHA, hello and good bye.
All of our lives are a summation of beginnings and endings. Marked are these moments in our life and everything else, who we are, who we become, who we encounter, develops from these moments. The classic example of a beginning is birth. A natural ending, death. Everything that flows in between is a subtle example of these major moments in a person's life. For me, for most perhaps, endings are something to dread. I was always the girl to cry at the end of Christmas and birthdays because they were over, ball as I had to say good bye to grandparents after their visits to our house, and, as ridiculous as it sounds, hate the last day of school. There's something I cannot stand about things coming to an end. I've never liked endings and I might never come to particularly look forward to them, but what I've come to see as I've watched that basketball team and as I've seen events in my life over the past days and months, is that it's only through the endings we face, that we can begin once again!
Think about it, at some crossroad in your life you had to make a choice to end your former ways of life and begin a life centered on Christ. That is a beginning and ending that occurs in my life continuously as I make the choice to end my former ways and begin again to live my life in Christ! Reconciliation is this transition of ending and beginning made concrete. We must say good bye to our sins to say hello to the grace of a God who constantly allows us to grow through each end and new beginning. ALOHA, hello and good bye.
There are so many times in our lives where we must say good bye to things, people, or dreams before we deem ourselves ready. And in the moment we resist these good byes, challenge them or even refuse to say them. I know I do this all the time. And we think that everything in our lives is so good and so perfect that it can't possibly be time for an ending. God has better plans then we do! And sometimes the only way we can start a new and beautiful beginning that God has in store, is to say good bye to that very thing we try so urgently to hang on to. Maybe for you it's a bad habit, or a draining friendship or relationship, or a fear of the unknown. Maybe it's a small good bye you need to say or the most life-changing good bye of your life. Sometimes we have to choose to say these good byes in our lives and sometimes they hit us like a ton of bricks and come in the form of things we have no control over! Regardless of what they are or where they come from, good byes are difficult. But take hope, behind every good bye you face, is a coming hello!
Even in death, God has promised us a new beginning of eternal life. Shouldn't we find some solace, some joy, and the true purpose of our lives in that very idea. For, as long as we have a true and amazing Savior, we will always have an awaiting hello. We shouldn't live dreading the endings but looking for hope that awaits us behind every closed door! There will be plenty more good bye moments in my distant future. As I encounter these difficult moments and as you encounter these moments in your life, I pray that we stop to recognize, in our sadness, in our hurt, and in our fear, that through these moments of loss, God is closing doors to open new and more beautiful ones for each of us! What if we changed our way of thought? What if instead of seeing every good bye as an ending, we saw it as exactly what it was, an ALOHA!
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