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When They Leave You
Today a very special person is leaving my life. It is not because he is choosing to leave me personally, but he is moving away to take a job in another city and it makes me very sad. Oh I'm happy for him to have the new position, but I have learned to love Ken as a friend and to greatly respect him as a person and as a Christian musician and leader. Though I'm no great singer, it has been a great honor to be in his choir. My heart is sad that he is leaving us and I will miss him greatly.
Through the years there have been many people that I have come to love who have left my life. Then there have been those times when I was the one who left, to move to another place, or to take another job. Leaving people you have come to love is always difficult. The hardest goodbyes are when that person has played an intimate role in your life. I am speaking of those who have left through death or divorce or some other difficult separation.
I have seen up close the scars that have been left in the lives of people, children specifically, who have been left by the parents who gave birth to them. Let me be quick to add that not all of these cases are to be condemned. But whether it was because of death or for other reasons, there is a lasting wound. I have personally heard the tears from the ripping hearts of those who are too young to understand and who consider themselves abandoned and betrayed, and there is nothing they can do about it. Love from others can help to heal the wounds, but it cannot bring a complete healing.
There is only One who can heal this kind of wound and that is Jesus Christ. We read in Isaiah 61:1, "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to ... bind up the brokenhearted..." When Jesus preached in the temple He quoted that verse because the verse was prophetically speaking of Him (Luke 4:18).
So, there is a Healer of the deepest kinds of wounds, but also there is One who will never leave us. Jesus also said, "...I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not. [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!) So we take comfort and are encouraged and confidently and boldly say, The Lord is my Helper; I will not be seized with alarm [I will not fear or dread or be terrified]. What can man do to me?" (Hebrews 13:5-6 Amplified Bible).
"Heavenly Father, today gather each of your precious ones into Your mighty comforting arms who have known this kind of pain. Whether they are very young or old, where the wounds of loss of those they loved and needed are still open and bleeding, come in with Your oil and Your wine, and bind up their broken hearts today. May each one of them find in You the comfort, assurance and healing that only You can bring. May they begin today a personal relationship with the only One who can promise never to leave them or forsake them. In Jesus' name. Amen"
Copyright Daphne Harrington 2000