My family moved around a lot while I was growing up. One year we'd be on the aptly named Emerald Isle complaining in true British fashion about the amount of rain. The next we'd be in one of the arid provinces of Mozambique complaining in a universally human fashion about the temperatures that topped 40 degrees centigrade. Perhaps the hardest thing about such a nomadic lifestyle was the frequency with which I had to say goodbye to my friends. When the average duration for living in a given place is under 2 years, bonds just start to take shape before they get shattered. No matter how good the new place may be, no matter how infrequent the power failures, how clean the water, how likeable the neighbours, or how plentiful the chocolate, the absence of Ron or Mike knocks it several dozen steps away from idyllic. It's worst at night; something about the cold, lonesome darkness simply devours hope and joy.
One of the hardest questions that I've encountered as a Christian takes this problem to an extreme. How can heaven possibly be paradise if your neighbours and friends aren't there? It may have gold paved roads and orchards of life-giving fruit trees, but in loneliness all that would quickly grow stale. The oasis of life may be marvellous, but the memory of those lost in the desert sullies it with sorrow.
