It is ALWAYS See You Later

 

She lived in a little two room house on Highway 50 just miles from  the capitol of North Carolina.   Even though I always had running water in the house where I was raised and the house I called home,   she did not.  She got her water from a well behind the house.    A bathroom was located behind the house  instead of next to her bedroom.   She heated her home with a wood stove that made the house quite toasty and sometimes made me hot.    

While she was in her 80’s, I was young in age and even younger as a pastor.   A student at Duke by day learning from professors and books, and a pastor at night and on Sundays learning from people like her who had been “soldiers of the cross” longer than I had been alive.    I would stop by her home regularly as pastors would visit homes in those days especially the homes of the elderly, homebound, and the like.     I would often find her listening to radio station WPTF in Raleigh that she would quickly turn off when we would began our visit.     Most of the time, our visits would end with me as her pastor offering a prayer that seemed appropriate with what we had talked about that day.     As I went out  the door heading to my Plymouth Duster, she would follow me chattering the whole way.    “Goodbye”,  I would say as I began to get in the car.   And often, she would say back to me as she wagged her finger:   “No, no.  It is never goodbye, but see you later.”

A few years went by, and there came a time for me to leave that parish.    With a diploma from Duke in hand, I headed to my first full time appointment as a pastor.    One day a few years later my heart sank  when  I received the call that she had died.   I headed back to  Raleigh to be among those who gathered in that church to celebrate her life and mourn the death of a woman who taught me as much about being a follower of the Lord Jesus and a pastor as the professors at Duke Divinity School.    As I left the graveside that day,  I thought back to those words of her to me from years earlier that she said to me more than once:  “No, no.   It is never goodbye, but see you later.” 

I think about her every now and then even though it has been over 40 years since I was her pastor. For those in Christ who live in the truth of the resurrection, it is never goodbye, but see you later.   We are people of the Empty Tomb, the Easter people and that means that this  world is not the end.   That is my hope that I have staked  over 40 years of my life and ministry on.     When I am in the Raleigh- Durham area again,  I suspect I will make a little field trip back  to that cemetery where she was buried many years ago and I will say a French phrase that she  probably never said:   “Au revoir.”     It is the French phrase is often said  when people are parting.   While some think it means “goodbye”, it literally means “till we see each other again.”   Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor Randy Wall  

 

PRAYER --  O God,  we praise you for the resurrection of Christ Jesus and the hope it offers now and for eternity.   Through your Spirit, help me to rise to new heights in loving and serving you;  through Jesus Christ the risen Lord.  Amen.