Saying Goodbye

This morning, I stood in front of a dumpster where I had just put my old chair.  It had finally worn out.  This was a chair I bought in Germany twenty years ago and it followed me back home in 1999.  For the last twenty years this chair has supported me in my early morning times with God.  It allowed me to sit in it’s warm embrace encouraging my thinking process as I wrote five books and hundreds of blog articles.  That old worn out chair had been my companion while I prepared messages and took phone calls from struggling people.  Looking at my old chair in the dumpster, I got choked up. I felt like I was throwing away an old friend.

As I stood in front of the dumpster part of me wanted to jump in and rescue my old friend, but I knew I could not.  It was time to say good bye. Even as I write this article a tender place in my heart is reacting to the typing of these words. The place my old chair once rested now has a new guest - a vintage Ekorne chair made in Norway.  My wife and daughter promised me this new chair would be a suitable and honorable replacement for my old friend.  As I sit here and write the Ekorne chair is faithfully supporting my endeavor.

In everything I experience in life, I try to see if there might be a personal message attached to the experience.  Today, my old chair provided such a message for me.  My old chair taught me there will be times when we simply need to let something go because it’s time of usefulness is over.  I think God allows us to feel these moments of release to prepare us to say goodbye to the more significant things in our lives like a loved one or a season of life that has come to an end.

Solomon wisely wrote, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1) Everything in our lives has a time and a season to live and be part of our existence.  At some point we need to let go. Letting go of a relationship or a meaningful season of life is part of living.  Letting go of my old chair was helping me consider the release of other things in my life that are no longer serving me well. 

As I sit here writing, I notice that my back is not hurting because my new chair has a wonderful lumbar support that my old chair did not have.  This new chair might become a close friend sooner than I thought. The presence of this new chair is like a strange and unfamiliar season of life that begins to wrap itself around our lives inviting us to become a new and comfortable friend.