Goodbyes Are a Circle of Love

"Grace be with you." (Colossians 4:18)

It was time to leave our grandchildren and return home. "Goodbye, honey, I love you."

"Gramma, why is it goodbye? It isn’t good if you’re going home."

"Actually, Alicia, it means "God be with you." When we go home, we ask God to take care of you."

"But if he’s taking care of us, who is taking care of you?"

Wow! Theology for a six-year-old when the clock is ticking! "God is here in West Virginia with you," I offered, "and out in California with Granddaddy and me. God can hold both your hand and mine, sort of like a big circle."

"Hey, Gramma! That’s God’s ring-around-the-rosy."

"You’re right, honey. Every time you play it with your friends, you can remember God’s playing it with you and Ashlie and Gramma and Granddaddy, too."

"Goodbye" has never been an empty phrase to me since. The word said joins me and the one I’m speaking to — and all the rest of the world — in God’s ring-around-the-rosy. May God’s grace be with us all.

Beyond the Door
1. This meditation sounds a little like the children’s song, "He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands," with all its various stanzas. Review some of the song’s stanzas in your head silently.

2. Then make up one or more stanzas of your own, putting your own person or creature in place of "the whole world" — like "God’s got Great-Aunt Phoebe in his hands."

3. Try this at your next circle meeting to reveal all who are in your group’s "circle of love."

4. Include animals and all God’s creatures in some stanzas.

5. Listen for God calling you to become more aware of how big God’s world is, and how widespread God’s love is for everyone in it.