As much as I abhor airports, I've found some of my best memories are made in them. Saturday morning all of the staff packed up in the vans one last time to head off to Philadelphia International Airport and then home. For the most part I held up some sense of put-togetherness on the 45 min. trip there, and then promptly began to lose it as we pulled up to the terminals. 2 hours of sleep were a lovely thing to blame for the absolute puddle of tears I became, but in all truth I had just been hit with the realization of how much everyone I was saying goodbye to had become a part of my life. Goodbyes are messy and wet and mostly incoherent (at least on my part) when exchanged between dear friends. In the midst of all the hugging and sobbing, though, there was something beautiful. As cheesy as it may sound, our summer ending and all the heart-wrenching goodbyes it entailed was the result of a love that goes beyond understanding.
It would make sense that in over the course of 8 weeks, spending 24/7 with each other and sharing almost everything, people would come together. It just happens naturally. What made the difference, though, was that these people were "the excellent ones" (Ps. 16:3) who were made that way by Christ because it delighted Him to do so. Every Sunday night at t-time (a time where students are able to chill and consume copious amounts of Cheez-Its while debriefing the day), I told my girls that. I followed with the challenge to treat those around them as excellent and to delight in them as Christ did- because the knowledge of Christ choosing to make us excellent beings and to delight in us in order to please Himself should so thrill and draw our souls to loving Him that all our love spills over on to others. Here then, I find the love that passes understanding. Christ's love was filling each of us as staff, and so was poured out among our team. We loved each other with a love not our own as we saw Christ being manifested in each other.
I come back to goodbyes. Several hours after the team had divided among numerous airlines and had been separated by the 'wailing wall'( as Lydia aptly dubbed the obnoxious glass wall between us and security), Lydia and I sat in the Phoenix airport waiting for her flight. We had come off our first flight exhausted and eager for coffee. Cinnabon was the closest thing to her gate, so she came up to me as I stood with our bags and said "Let's have coffee and cinnamon rolls." Those 15 minutes in that dingy airport with mediocre coffee hold one of my favorite memories of the summer: to sit with one of my dearest friends and share the joy of completing a good summer- fully knowing its goodness and simultaneously its time to end- was total joy and satisfaction. Even in saying goodbye and joking about joining her in Idaho just so I wouldn't have to do that anymore, it was wonderful to know our relationship went beyond camp and summer and distance.
So here I sit in my bed with my cat, happy and content. Being home is good. Hopefully over the next couple weeks I'll be able to share some of my stories and thoughts from the summer, but for now- bed, because sleep is also good. Very good.
