Sorrow and Sufficiency

Parting is such sweet sorrow.
--Shakespeare

Is that really true? I'm not Juliet saying goodnight to her Romeo and I'm nothing near a literary expert, but I cannot understand these words. We weren't really meant to part, to separate, to disconnect from our relationships. So the sorrow overwhelms, for the parting is result of brokenness in our world.
These past weeks, I have driven away from people I love, who I will not see again for a long time, if ever. And on Thursday it wasn't my windshield that was wet, but the tears in my eyes that were threatening to obscure my vision. "Is it worth it to come back, just to leave again, to say goodbye again?" I asked myself. The pain is fresh again, the wound of distance is raw. I felt very alone as I sped through the winding Mississippi hills, knowing that there are more goodbyes to come, more sorrow to be felt, more tears to be shed. I know that for many I have the joy of saying, "Till we meet again"--but even in that, there is a goodbye. To life as I know it, for it will keep moving and changing while I am away. To relationships, knowing they too will change and grow distant with the separation of 10000 miles. Sitting in my car, in the middle of nowhere-land, my tears came. I choked back sobs of fear that I would always feel alone, would not be able to bear the sorrow of the partings. As I fought off the grief, I heard the song that had just begun in my CD player.

Father, You're all I need
My soul's sufficiency
My strength when I am weak
The love that carries me

Your arms enfold me, till I am only

A child of God

--Kathryn Scott

That is the truth. Not some platitude trying to make me think this is all ok, this is normal. But the truth that I am weak, I am not enough for myself, that no one and nothing on this earth will ever really satisfy me. I expect more tears, more sorrow, more pain at the breaking of community--both on this side of the ocean and in Ethiopia. Yet through all those crushing moments in time, my soul's Sufficiency will remain.