I have a confession to make: I, Janelle Honeycutt, am a total sap.

OK… that wasn’t really a confession. At least, not a very secret one. Anyone who’s spent any time around me knows that I’m an extremely sentimental person. I get giddy over silly little romantic things, I have tickets from movies I saw with my friends several years ago and I cry over books and movies far more than I care to admit.

But the things that tug the hardest at my heart strings are goodbyes.

Over the last year or so of my life, I’ve become very practiced in the art of saying goodbye. When I say this, I don’t mean that I’ve figured out exactly how to "do goodbyes right," and I certainly haven’t figured out how to make them hurt any less. No, all I really mean is I’ve learned a lot about how my heart works in the midst of saying goodbye to the people and things that I love.

Goodbyes seem to be strangely perceived in our culture. Everyone admits they’re difficult in some sense, but there’s often a very hopeless and devastating connotation attached to goodbyes. It seems that some people would rather not say goodbye at all than experience the pain of watching someone or something leave their presence. This isn’t without reason, of course; surely, goodbyes are tragic and difficult. I get that.

In my experience, I often find myself somewhat wallowing in the tragedy of goodbyes. Per my character, I don’t typically shy away from feelings or emotions; rather, I tend to glorify them. I make everyone hug me at least three times before they leave. I take pictures of every last symbolic or important thing in hopes of capturing it in my memory forever. And honestly, it often feels like a moral duty to shed at least one tear when saying goodbye to someone. It’s really rather unhealthy. Obviously loving people is good, but thinking of goodbyes as simply hysterically emotional moments of parting can’t be healthy for our view of relating to one another. If that’s all a goodbye is, it completely lacks any sense of hope.

Without hope, saying goodbye means that humans are perpetually and eternally unable to be with each other forever. It means that we are always bound by rules of time and space and are cosmically forbidden to be with someone ever again. Without hope, saying goodbye is truly devastating.

However, I believe goodbyes carry an aspect of beauty in allowing us to perceive God’s grace upon mankind more fully. Being bound by the rules of time and space is difficult and sad, sure. But it also bears the full weight of what it means to be a human on this earth. In this life, we simply cannot be with all people at all times. We are burdened with the pain of having to leave the presence of others at times because we simply cannot exist in their midst forever. But the beauty of saying goodbye lies in our hope for an eternity with God and others in which we don’t ever have to say goodbye but are forever in communion with one another. So long as hope is present, saying goodbye simply acknowledges the earthly human state which you presently reside in and yearns for the day when you will be eternally present with the entirety of the kingdom of God.

Goodbyes can only truly be good when one has hope for eternity.

Whether it's for a day, a year or a decade, the act of watching someone you love leave your presence is fundamentally tragic. We weren’t created to be apart from one another. Original peace would have it that we be eternally in the presence of others and of God. The company of two souls being prevented by the chains of time and distance is contradictory to the original communion we were intended to live in. However, in the light of hope which we receive through God’s grace, we have the gift of perceiving goodbyes as a glimpse into longing for an eternity with God. As long as hope in Christ is present, saying goodbye just means longing for the time when we will be eternally united with God and man.