"Why do we withhold LOVE?"
This is the question that opens this documentary on Kara Tippetts. Looming death has forced this pastor's wife to re-examine her life with unflinching frankness and consider how she will leave the relationships of her life.
And the lessons learned apply to everyone who will one day die.
The phrase "The Long Goodbye" refers to her knowing months or even over a year ahead of time of her terminal condition. Hers is not an instant death, but one drawn out in full knowledge--a knowledge that overlays all of her relationships and interactions with a perpetual state of saying "goodbye".
My life is haunted by Kara Tippetts. Do I love my wife and children unconditionally? Sometimes.
Do I withhold love as a form of "punishment"? Yes, I do. And this is the tragedy that Kara beseeches us to avoid. Kara never insinuates that the amount of time we have together is not important. It is. But most of us will never know how much time we will have together and therefore we need to LOVE TODAY and cherish the people in our lives.
If there is a silver lining to this tragic terminal condition it is that Kara found out a year or so prior just how much time she will have. And from that she can pass along a perspective to avoid regrets and make correct priorities about people vs. things vs. The Self.
Her message was one that resonates with me SINCE I viewed this--not necessarily during. The profundity of her life lived to the glory of God became evident in the months AFTER viewing this, like a slow burn of conviction with me and a loving constant of how to love my wife, children, parents and friends.
This is the question that opens this documentary on Kara Tippetts. Looming death has forced this pastor's wife to re-examine her life with unflinching frankness and consider how she will leave the relationships of her life.
And the lessons learned apply to everyone who will one day die.
The phrase "The Long Goodbye" refers to her knowing months or even over a year ahead of time of her terminal condition. Hers is not an instant death, but one drawn out in full knowledge--a knowledge that overlays all of her relationships and interactions with a perpetual state of saying "goodbye".
My life is haunted by Kara Tippetts. Do I love my wife and children unconditionally? Sometimes.
Do I withhold love as a form of "punishment"? Yes, I do. And this is the tragedy that Kara beseeches us to avoid. Kara never insinuates that the amount of time we have together is not important. It is. But most of us will never know how much time we will have together and therefore we need to LOVE TODAY and cherish the people in our lives.
If there is a silver lining to this tragic terminal condition it is that Kara found out a year or so prior just how much time she will have. And from that she can pass along a perspective to avoid regrets and make correct priorities about people vs. things vs. The Self.
Her message was one that resonates with me SINCE I viewed this--not necessarily during. The profundity of her life lived to the glory of God became evident in the months AFTER viewing this, like a slow burn of conviction with me and a loving constant of how to love my wife, children, parents and friends.
