When you sit in the lobby of a hotel, you can watch people wandering in and out of the revolving doors.  Some people come in with a clear purpose and go directly to their destination.  Some people will wander in and pause to register where they should be going.  Some people will be waiting for someone.  I’ve always been the one who sits there with a cup of coffee and watches the traffic.   This weekend,  I spent some time taking a long look at the people who have wandered in and out of the revolving doors of my life and I was contemplating how people always seem to be so transient.  

It’s not that I want to live in the past, but I guess I have always felt a certain disappointment when I meet people whom I invest myself in and before I know it they are moving on.  Sometimes they move on after only an hour, sometimes after a year, sometimes after several years, but they move on all the same.  It feels as though my heart has a revolving door on it.

Right now, I am grieving the loss of one of the core members of our ministry.  This person stood side-by-side with us for over five years and invested herself in us and our ministry as well, and now, as we finally take separate paths, I find that my revolving door heart is breaking just a little once again. 

I’ve gone through this more than a few times in my life, but I have found that it is still always difficult.  As I took a look at my life, I wandered back over paths that had diverged before.  It’s always been a hard thing for me to move on from friendship because there is a strong sense of loyalty in me, and yet, I know that it is necessary for these people to move on in order to learn more or at least that is my hope.  Maybe the problems lies in the fact that I always feel as though I have been left behind, rather than perceiving it as a a wonderful adventure where two paths are moving onto to different and separate adventures.   I know that I can’t go along on someone else’s journey. 

I believe that it isn’t the amount of time we spend with someone, but the impact that we have on them that matters most of all.  Some people go through our revolving doors for only moments and yet they impact us incredibly.  Others will linger and walk with us for a while before they gently wander onto another pathway. 

As we get older, some of us will start to come to the end of our paths as well.  Some people in our lives are torn from our lives against our will and we grieve for those losses as well.  There is no way to separate paths without grief and even those who are most loyal to me, will someday be separated from me.

When I dream, I nearly always feel the presence of an unknown person standing just behind my left shoulder.  This person has no face, no personality, and never speaks, and yet, I know that this person is my friend.  This is the friend who will walk all of my paths with me and never leave me.  This friend shields me from the heartbreak of loss, walks with me, and never takes another path because my path is His path and because of this friend, I am able to withstand the pain that is wrought by the revolving doors inside my heart.