Hard to Say Goodbye

Today's post is dedicated to our good friends Mike and Michelle McClure who are probably in the car on the way to their new life in Austin as I type.

Mike pulled up to our driveway in Richmond, Virginia five and a half years ago. He had just graduated from UNC and was trying his hand at this InterVarsity staff worker business. He was to intern and train under me for a year at Virginia Commonwealth University. His fund raising had come along slowly. So Kelly and I offered to have him live with us to cut down on his expenses and get him to campus quicker.

Since that time, the pictures of the major events and milestones of our lives are like a "where's Waldo" picture game featuring Mike (and later his wife Michelle) McClure.

Mike stayed on staff for just that one year, then ventured into the business world. He met his wife Michelle in our kitchen at a party. We got to know Michelle along with Mike as their relationship developed and grew.

Our oldest child Davis was born a couple days before Thanksgiving, 2003. Mike and Michelle were engaged and already on the Thanksgiving day guest list. The rest of our families joined them. We brought Davis home on Thanksgiving day to the families and Mike and Michelle. Fitting, really. A couple of weeks later, one of Davis' first public outings was to Mike and Michelle's wedding that I had the privilege of being a groomsman in.

After some business-world work in Richmond, Mike decided to pursue business school back at UNC. Several months later, Kelly and I decided to accept the position of IV staff team leader back at UNC. We chose our houses without consulting but we ended up being within a mile and a half of one another.

Mike and Michelle helped us to welcome Zoe into the world six months after we all arrived in Chapel Hill. This past fall, when Kelly went into Labor at 4:30 a.m, we called Mike and Michelle to come over at that ungodly hour to be there for our kids when they woke up. They loved the chance to serve us and love on our kids--even at 4:30 a.m.

Mike just finished up grad school and the Lord was good to respond to all of our prayers as he landed a sweet job at the University of Texas in Austin.

Mike and Michelle have shared the most continuous, in-the-same-place-history with our family of anyone in our lives right now. Saturday night we shared several hours together reminscing and putting off good-byes until we were all too tired to ignore that ache any more. We prayed for one another and gave deep, sad, glad hugs.

Blessings, my friends, as you head to Texas. Thanks for sharing so much of life together for these past five years.