United Presbyterian Church of Northville

Dear friends, 

Today is one of those heartbreakingly beautiful days that is so much more precious because we can see the waning of summer.  It is a little more poignant than coming to the last piece of the most wonderful pie, and a little less meaningful than the final hug as a child leaves for college... after all those other, earlier hugs that might have been the last ones, but weren't.  When the actual end of something comes - when the good-bye has left our lips, and we feel as if it took all our breath with it - there is a little lurching feeling inside of us, like turbulence of the soul.  We don't want good things to end.  We don't want the last to come.

But if you ever find yourself feeling that way, remember the wonderful double-meaning of the word "last."  Of course, it means the final something, the something after which there are no more something-elses.  But last means more.

It lasts.  It sticks around, and changes us.  It dwells in us, the way all the other earlier ones didn't.  It takes on meaning, and lives inside our memories - and when I say lives, I mean lives, because it changes and grows and calls us up from time to time when we need to hear from it, whether we want it to or not.  It is the lasting impression; the lasting moment.  The famous last words.  The everlasting life.

When we have to let go of things, or people, remember that in letting go we give them a chance at immortality.  Our hearts will be broken again and again, as we let go of a lifetime of friends and family.  But have faith, that we let them go so they may last.  And may our everlasting savior, Jesus, give us grace to wipe the tears from our eyes, and love us with hope.

Be well, pray often, and do it all with love.

-Kirianne

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