Separation Anxiety

        We knew we were in for an adventure when five minutes into the bus ride our driver treated himself to a snack—one that came out of his own nostrils. According to my wife, watching someone pick their nose and eat its contents is one of those things too horrible to watch but impossible to avoid; she stared, mouth wide open, while I tried to zone out and prepare for the trip. We were on a bus, headed from Malacca, Malaysia to Singapore.
        We probably shouldn't have expected too much from our coach’s captain — at 22 Ringgit a ticket (about 7 US dollars) you’re simply not going to receive stellar service. Another five minutes later he was overtaking cars on the interstate, all the while seemingly having a great time talking on his mobile phone. He almost stranded us at Johor Bahru when we accidently got off thinking we had arrived at a customs point — we walked a good hundred meters before we realized we were at the wrong place. Thankfully, he hadn’t pulled away— though we were certain he would have had we been a second more. This was confirmed to us when he let us off at the customs checkpoint in Singapore and did in fact fail to wait for us to get through.
        Being on the right side of the Singapore/Malaysia border, I was a bit upset that he had done this to us but not really worried about finding our way to friendly faces. No one spot in Singapore is any great distance from any other, as it is an island and a city-state nation. Chantelle on the other hand had a bit of separation anxiety. It’s funny how attached you can grow to someone who only a few hours before you could not wait to leave behind.
        The feelings of anxiety my wife felt thought would have been nothing in comparison to that felt by the Ephesian elders when they realized they had seen Paul for the last time. The text says of their emotional state, "And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more" (Acts 20:37).
        Hone in on the word in bold: sorrowing. The same Greek word was used to describe the emotional state of Jesus’ parents as they frantically searched for Him. Luke records, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing" (Luke 2:48). The word sorrowing is translated, "anxiously," in the NKJV.
        Without taking too many liberties with a language that’s "Greek to me," I find it interesting that in both of these passages the sorrow described is a sorrow brought upon by separation. I then find it interesting that the same word used to describe Jesus’ parents and the Ephesian elders is only used once more in scripture—to refer to the rich man when he awoke in hades. There the word is translated, "tormented" (Luke 16:24-25).
        We all suffer separation anxiety on this earth—be it from bus drivers, loved ones, or our homes. The greatest sorrow that separation can bring is to be tormented in an eternal fire away from God. May all of us live so as to avoid eternal separation anxiety.