The Hardest Word

Over the past few months, our two year old has become quite the little mockingbird. If you watch her close enough, you’ll see her sitting silently in the living room or kitchen absorbing the conversation going on around her like a sponge. Watching her, you can almost see the gears turning in her head. She has that look on her face that wonders, “How do I get the words that just went in my ear to land on my tongue and somehow form on my lips?” And after mulling it around in her head for a few seconds, she does her best to imitate whatever she just heard.

And you know what? She’s getting pretty good at it. She can string a 3 or 4-word sentence together with the best of them.

But despite her ever-expanding vocabulary, there are some words that prove to be too difficult for her. Try as she might, anything that starts with a “Th” or “Cr” sound are just too hard for her to pronounce.

But in time, she’ll get it. Just like we all did at some point. I can think of the various times over the years that I did battle with some serious words. Words of Kilimanjaro-size proportion. Words that, in comparison, make Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious look like “Run, Spot, run.” I remember when I was first confronted with that behemoth of a word: Antidisestablishmentarianism. What a mouthful.

But after a few slip-ups and a couple of attempts at sounding it out slowly, I finally got it. And in time I learned some others. Eschatological. Superlapsarian and infralapsarian. Even transubstantiation. Of course, these words don’t have much use. Just try using one at a dinner party sometime and see how popular you don’t become. But nevertheless, it feels good when you finally grab hold of a word and master it.

But there are some words I don’t think I’ll ever master. I can think of one particular word that no matter how many times I practice and rehearse it, it still remains, for me, the most difficult word to pronounce in the entire English language.

Do you know what it is?

It’s goodbye.

Haven’t mastered that one yet. Not by a long shot.

And yet this weekend many of my friends and colleagues around the North Georgia Annual Conference will have to do their best to say it. To their friends, to their neighbors, but most of all to their churches. By the grace of God, I won't have to say that word to our church for at least another year if not more. But like it or not, the time will come.

You see, in the United Methodist church we pastors are not hired and fired at will. We’re appointed, which basically means that if and when the Bishop deems it necessary, we are asked to move from one church and to serve another.

Sometimes we serve in a particular church for a long time—sometimes 15 or even 20 years or more. Other times, we can serve for a time as short just 12 months. But regardless of the length of one’s tenure, the reality that all United Methodist pastors and churches face is that at some time they will have to utter that fateful word: “Goodbye.”

And that’s a difficult thing to do. Especially when it means saying goodbye to people you love.

This weekend, our church will have the painful joy of saying goodbye to some of our dear friends, Jungil and Myongah. They’ve been appointed to serve in the local church in Illinois. And I know that it’s going to be extremely difficult to say goodbye, but I’ve decided that I’m going to force myself to do it.

Do you know why? Because I know that God is calling them to be exactly where He needs them most.

Truth be told, it took me a while to come to that realization. When I was first told that I had better start practicing my “goodbyes” I thought, “Surely, this is some kind of mistake. The Rhees can’t move to Illinois. They need to stay here, where they’re loved and appreciated and needed.” If I had my way, they wouldn’t be going anywhere.

But then I remembered a verse from Proverbs 19: “Many are the plans in the human heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

What an important reminder. A reminder that says, “You may think you have it all figured out. You may think you know what’s best. You may think you know where you need to be. But in the end, it’s God who is in control.”

And so I’ve come to realize that the ultimate truth is this: God knows exactly what He’s doing by moving the Rhees to Illinois. It may not be entirely clear to us why right now, but I guess that’s why that whole “trust and obey” is so important.

So, this Sunday we’ll say goodbye to the Rhees. Does that mean that I have to like it?

No.

But will I trust that God will take care of them and us as we say it?

Absolutely.