From where I sit on this train station bench, waiting for the screaming, whistling thing that will propel me into some place beyond this tunnel’s black unknown, I have alot of time to think. Mostly about the past, actually, about the things packed securely in the suitcases at my feet. The memories and songs and adventures I will have to live out mentally from now on. Friends are parting ways, some in the very same station, others having long ago taken their track to God’s providential Somewhere. It’s alot harder, right now, to think about the future.

Too much unmarked territory, faces unnamed, roads untravelled, beds made snugly to keep out familiarity. Soon, I’m sure, it will be these faces and places and warm-unmade-mattress-homes that I will miss. For now I am stuck somewhere between before and after, in a place called now which happens to be very lonely.

There is, of course, the joy too. Yellow bubbles that rise inside my heart and stick -trapped-somewhere beneath my ribcage. It is there, but not quite recognized, and is overshadowed by this sad pulling away from everything… and everyone.

A lady from my church explained it perfectly: It’s as if you are in a strainer and God is lifting His people up, only many of them are falling through to stay. You are still being taken up and out. And that’s okay… because He’s got you.

Another friend of mine explained to me that the definition of being set apart is to be picked up from one place and set down in another. There is nothing accidental or incorrect about it.

But no one said it would be painful.

So I wonder, then, how children approach this subject. How they cope when the strings of life pull them in paths they – in their childlike innocence – had not anticipated. How they struggle through Goodbyes and the shameless shifts from Familiar to Unknown.

I suppose they cry and hug their mommies and daddies and pray and wish and miss their old lives the same as everyone else. Which isn’t much different from how I’ve acted lately. The emotion is normal I suppose – anyone will justify that. What matters is who I see in all this.

So I hold onto Abba-Daddy and cry and pray and wish and miss everyone and everything. And even though He is invisible, His hugs are no less felt and I feel better. Knowing that when that train comes to take me where I cannot see, He will be holding my hand and leading me broken into new adventures, new places and people and stories and everything.

And, like He keeps telling me, it will be okay…