When People Come Back, When People Leave.

 When People Come Back, 

When People Leave.

Good Morning with God · 

-A Personal Reflection from Ezekiel

As I’ve been reading Ezekiel, I’ve been slowly learning something about God:

God knows the timing of everything.

In Ezekiel, I keep reading about a God who allows His people to be scattered, yet also promises that He will gather them again.

And somewhere in those words, I began thinking about my own life.

People have come into my life.
And people have left.

Some were once close to me but are now far away.
Others I thought were completely gone from my life somehow found their way back again.

There was a time when I wanted to understand the reason for everything.

Why did God bring this person into my life?

Why did we grow apart?

Why did this person come back?

And sometimes, instead of questioning the other person, I questioned myself.

Maybe I didn’t know how to be a good friend either.

Maybe if I had done something differently, things would have turned out differently.

Maybe I missed something.

Maybe I should have tried harder.

There were times when I carried those questions longer than I needed to, quietly blaming myself for things I could not fully understand.

But I am learning that I do not have to find the answer to every relationship.

I can look honestly at myself.

If there is something I need to learn, I want to learn it.

If there is something I need to change, I want to change it.

But I no longer want to carry the responsibility of explaining everything I cannot know.

Some things I can simply place in God’s hands.

And strangely, when I began doing that, I found peace.

Not because every relationship was repaired.

Not because every question was answered.

But because I began to understand that peace does not always come from finally figuring everything out.

Sometimes peace comes from trusting that God knows what I do not.

As I continue reading Ezekiel, that thought keeps returning to me:

God already knows.

He knows why someone was brought into my life.

He knows why someone was allowed to leave.

And He knows why, sometimes, people who were once scattered from our lives cross our paths again.

I may not understand it all.

But God does.

And because of that, I want to learn to hold people a little differently.

I don’t want someone’s return to make my heart proud or overly excited.

And I don’t want someone’s departure to have the power to pull my whole life into sadness.

That doesn’t mean I want to love people less.

Maybe it means I am finally learning how to love them more freely.

I don’t think I arrived here because I became especially good at waiting.

And I don’t think it is because I became strong enough not to need anyone.

Maybe I have simply begun to discover another kind of freedom:

the freedom to enjoy the life and blessings God has already given me, even when certain people are no longer in it.

Because people are not the owners of my life.

God is.

So if someone comes back, I want to be grateful without becoming proud.

I don’t want my heart to whisper,

See? They came back after all.

And if someone leaves, I may still feel sadness.

But I don’t want to remain there so long that I lose the life God is still giving me today.

Instead, I want to pray:

Lord, You know.
And if there is something I need to understand, please show me in Your time.

There is something else I want to remember.

I am God’s child.

But the people I struggle with are also people God sees.

Even those who have hurt me are not outside His sight.

Life brings painful things.

Relationships can disappoint us.
People can misunderstand one another.
Some things really are sad, unfair, or difficult.

I don’t have to pretend those things never happened.

But how grateful I am that God does not make me live there forever.

I can get up and live today again.

I can love the family in front of me.

I can sit down to a warm meal.

I can laugh.

I can learn something new.

I can pray.

I can enjoy the small blessings God has already placed around me.

Perhaps that, too, is grace.

A life where I am not completed because someone comes,
and I am not destroyed because someone leaves.

Because before all of that,

I am already my Father’s child.

And God is still the Lord of my life.

So when people come,

may I receive them with humility.

When people leave,

may I release them with peace.

And through all of it,

may I learn to watch God’s hand
more closely than I watch the movement of people.

Today, this is my prayer:

Lord, I don’t understand everything.
But You do.

Help me honestly see the things I need to learn and change,
but keep me from carrying what was never mine to carry.

Don’t let me place my peace in the coming and going of people.
Help me enjoy with gratitude the life and blessings You have already given me.

If there is something I need to understand,
show me in Your time.

And wherever I am,
help me never forget that I am Your child.

Amen.

A Question for Today

Am I still trying to understand something that I could simply place in God’s hands?

Maybe today I don’t need every answer.

Maybe I can look honestly at what is mine to learn, release what is not mine to carry, and trust the rest to God.

Today, I want to spend a little less time watching the movement of people—

and a little more time noticing the hand of God that has carried me this far.

Hallelujah.
Thank You, Father, for the freedom to live the life You have given me.

— HappyKay