It’s always the end of the school year. Graduates take off towards a different part of their lives, while little gets prepare for their last summer before school begins. (Essentially these little tykes won’t really appreciate it as much as they would if they new exactly what 13 years of school entailed..) The hugs her son for the last time before he goes out to fight for his country. The last time a friend will stay up late in a dorm room talking about who knows what. The last exam. The last assignment.
The last look at whatever you’re leaving, and the first real, tangible thought about wherever you’re going.
But is life all about the lasts? Do people really just run around from place to place, thing to thing, time to time and only be left with memories of the old placesthingstimes? It seems like such an unfair does of reality. No wonder people cry and and fret and dwell so heavily on the past. They miss the part of their lives that they can’t reach anymore. It’s a blessing to want to relive a part of your life. That piece of time cannot ever be taken back, but the desire to do it all again, for memory’s sake, is something we should be greatful for. It represents the fact that life was good, and sure, we’d love to take another more realistic stroll down memory lane. We’d actually like to do it again.
But this simply can’t be done. After several failed attempts at time machines and little nose-twitching tricks, life still goes and goes, and we move on and on, farther and further away from wherever it was we remember. So what do we do? The answer is not to sit in a frumpled crumbly mess of nostalgia. It is only to take the pieces of those memories that mean the most with us.
Some believe that people come and people go and the bearing that they have on your life is temporal. They say relationships can only be profitable for so long, some longer than others. They same sometimes friendships are forced, and time evolves into a lifespan of many relationships where it is just impossible to “hold on to the ones that really care.” I disagree. And strongly. The ties that bind the body of Christ are not mere aquaintences. They are the product of time, effort, prayer, love, support, admonishment, encouragement, recovered failure and forgiveness. Walking away from all of that has never seemed logical to me. Now, when those things start to decrease, and a relationship becomes less productive over time, the doubt settles in, and it’s time for some changes. Changes….not running away. Not throwing it all to the wind and settling for just the memories of the good ol’ days with so and so. Sit it out. Hunker down. Talk about what the deal is. It’s worth it. Why? Because often times, those struggles only result in a stronger bind in the Body. Satan shouldn’t be able to manipulate how we view our brothers and sisters. They all should be loved. And the ones who we have invested in, and grown with should not be discarded when push comes to shove.
When it’s time to leave a few close friends, it’s time to change, it’s time to try a little harder. It’s the time, then, to remember them in prayer, and communicate with them in different ways than maybe we’re comfortable with. It cannot be healthy to shift from community to community and try to erase the gifts God has given us in the past. The most memorable pieces of last year can come to this year, and next year and the years to come. The people will reinvent the memories when they need to. But let’s live in the present with a collection of the folks we’ve learned to cherish. Let’s let the past be the past, and keep these “lasts” from controlling emotions for years to come.
Now, how about those “firsts?”
