Good friends and I at our Sterling "going away" party--lots of tears--and laughter--that night

Two nights ago, as I was putting Maddie to bed, she banged her heel so hard on the bed post that she began to cry. After I held her and she settled, she asked me, “Mommy, why do tears come out of our eyes?”

I launched into an explanation of tear ducts, but she stopped me. “No, I mean, if we’ve hurt our foot or arm, why don’t they cry? Why do the tears come out of our eyes?”

I thought for a moment and then told her, “I wonder if God put tears in our eyes—a part of our body we can’t hide from each other—because He wants us to know when others are sad or hurt? If they came out of our foot or hand, we could hide that more easily. People try to hide their tears from others, but maybe that’s not what God wants. Maybe he wants us to see others’ tears and help them, to reach out to them in their pain or sadness.”

We humans do a lot of this kind of pretending. I read a Proverb recently that showed me that God is very aware of this. The rich man pretends he has nothing, it says, and the poor man lives as if he has more than he really does, trying to impress others. God obviously doesn’t like this pretense. Be honest, He says, over and over. Stop pretending that you’re “okay,” that you don’t have very deep needs. Stop acting as if you don’t need Me, as if you don’t need other people.

I’ve realized I do a lot of pretending. I hide any hurt and need behind stoicism (“Yep, doing okay”) or bravado, wearing my busy-ness like a badge of honor. I always want to be the strong one rather than the weak, the one who helps others rather than the one who is helped. The result is pride and a really nasty case of “mommy martyrdom” (a phrase Dave coined for the times when I “serve” while nursing a secret bitterness). After a while, I begin to believe my play-acting. “Look at the load you can handle,” I tell myself. “Look at all the people who lean on you.”

God’s been opening my eyes to some of the ugly outcomes of this attitude, and Maddie’s question helped me to see it even more clearly. When some part of my soul hurts or is in great need, why do I hide that from those who love me? I want to learn to express need, to share hurts…to be human.

If I don’t, I can’s experience true fellowship, which only works, truly, when the two seeking it are willing to be honest and real with each other, to acknowledge their own great needs and then seek, together, THE Answer to them.

I want to learn to “cry” in front of others.

On Wednesday, after the Saturday-night going away party, final visits with close friends, the rush of packing and cleaning, I was ready to just be finished and on the road. Numbness had set in and Dave and I decided we would finish packing the van and truck and head out late this night (Wednesday) rather than early the following morning.

But when we returned to the house from a last ice cream goodbye with some friends, and I walked into the kitchen and saw the chaos that still faced me–with my kids, hopped up on sugar, careening around me–I panicked. “There is no way, Lord,” I told Him, and I began singing “You are my strength” to keep myself from slipping over the edge.

Suddenly the Suttons showed up, followed by the Smiths. “Aah!” I thought, as I stood on the porch chatting with them. “We’ll be up all night.”

Then, blessing (God has this way of breaking down my self-sufficient, “I don’t want to ask for help, just be the one offering it” attitude), Brooke asked, “How ARE you?” And as she and Anne listened to my false bravado: “It’s all in the kitchen now. We’re on the homestretch,” they shot each other looks that said, “Yeah, right,” and they pushed past me and headed to the kitchen, both calling for their husbands to follow. Another friend pulled up just then and came inside as well.

Within three minutes, people were carrying already packed things outside, and Brooke and Anne were following me around with the kitchen with a big garbage bag asking, “Is this trash?” If I hesitated, the item went in the bag. “At this point, pretty much anything can be trashed,” Anne said, and Brooke laughed, nodding her head.

Within 15 minutes, the house was clear, and we were all gathered outside staring at the huge mound of stuff that needed to fit into our already pretty full van. Twenty minutes after that, it was all in, though Chai, Jake, and PJ each had only a tiny space to sit. The coat tree sat like a divider between the boys’ seats.

The Watneys arrived, took Jake and Maddie to their house to fetch their youngest son, Josiah, so he could say goodbye to Jake, and came back. We went through the house one last time, closing storm windows and turning off lights and then gathered in the kitchen to pray.

“Do you want a few minutes to say goodbye to the house?” Anne asked after Dave finished praying and I had tears streaming down my filthy cheeks. “Or do you want a rousing send-off?”

I glanced at Dave. A rousing send off seemed to be in the spirit of what God wanted for this last night of community.

Dave and the girls climbed into the truck, and the boys and I climbed in the van with Chai (she’d jumped in an hour earlier, wanting not to get left behind and had relaxed when I didn’t make her get out again.) Our friends gave us last hugs and well wishes, and we pulled out at 11:15 p.m. Who knows how much later it would have been had God not prompted Brooke and Anne to act on the question: “Do you need help?”

I want to learn to be more honest in answering it, not just in crisis but in everyday life.

I went to a goodbye party tonight, both a wonderful and uncomfortable event. It was a joy to say a collective goodbye and see together, in one group, so many who have been very special to us these past three years.

It was also uncomfortable to hear people thank and honor us. I don’t like having to get up and make a speech when I know I’m going to tear up and have to fight my way through it. I don’t like being reminded that we mourn because these relationships will never quite be the same.

But in the middle of all the wonderful and uncomfortable, I kept thinking of something else: we rarely celebrate those who STAY–until they retire, that is. How often do we say (other than with the gift of a five-year plaque or 20-year wall clock), “Thank you for continuing, for staying”?

We’ve left a lot of places and attended a lot of goodbye parties in our “honor.” But tonight, as I looked out at a roomful of people telling me about the nice things they think Dave and I have done at Sterling College and in our community and church, I wanted to say, “Thank YOU for staying, for listening to the call to continue. Thank YOU for being willing to fill in the small places God called us to fill while we were here while you continue with all you already do.”

We romanticize leaving far too much, I think. In most of Paul’s epistles, he talks about those who travel with him, but he also mentions, prays for, and thanks the people who continue to stay in a particular church.

So thank you, friends, for staying. We pray that our friendships thrive even across the miles, and we look forward to hearing the great things God will do in this community and college through you who stay.