A Short Goodbye (Pt 2)

-Dude, Susan's leaving, John Ibsen told me.

I stood in a small cluster with my friends John, Jake Warren, and David Park before the service on Sunday morning.

-Wait. What? When? I looked around to see if anyone was smirking, hoping maybe it was a joke. The faces reflected shock and pain back to me.

-She just came up to me and was like, 'Goodbye. My family's moving to Alabama,'

While I reeled from the news, John told me that Susan and Astry were going to have to leave town and move in with family in Alabama. Economic pressure and unjust wages had squeezed their finances dry, and rent was due.

The sisters were some of the first from our neighborhood to attend Open Table Community, and Susan was one of two youth who decided to trust Jesus the week before. We had been working with them for a few years, and they had changed the tone of the children's and youth programs with their unguarded enthusiasm and energetic presence. Several of us had rich relationships with them.

With the service starting, we quickly determined that an offering would not help at this point, and that, although we wanted to help, there was little we could do in the way of permanent solutions. We took our seats, stunned, feeling helpless.

As Peter, our music pastor, led us in a prayer for the poor early in the service, I felt restless. I felt a need to cry out to God, to say goodbye to Susan, to show her that she is loved and to send her off with hope. This service can't end without a proper goodbye, The Spirit seemed to be telling me. I crept over to David and asked him if we could do anything. He suggested that I talk with Peter.

David Park began to speak on the twin biblical themes of justice and compassion. Peter and I searched for ways to respond to Susan's crisis. As we all did the tasks we had been given, a sense of God's timing whispered through. The Father had given David a powerful message and had given all of us an opportunity to see its incarnation.

As the sermon ended, Peter handed me a microphone and went to bring the youth in. A wave of sorrow went through me. I lost control the moment it was my time to speak, choking out the short story of Susan's coming departure. As she and the youth entered the sanctuary, her friends in the church came forward as well. We told stories about her, giving testimony to the blessing she and Astry had been to us. We named her as our missionary to wherever God was taking her next, then the whole congregation gathered around to pray for her.

Susan and many of us were weeping as the prayer time ended. We had responded to the message of love and the prompting of the Holy Spirit to express God's love to Susan. Our time together on Sunday seemed like a beautiful ending to a sad story, but the turmoil and farewell only opened the door for the miracle God was about to work.