I have been with you for three years. We have broken bread together. Stayed at each others houses. Traveled together. Taught together. I love you. You are family to me.

But now I have to go. What has happened is for the good. But you won’t see m anymore. We won’t talk on the phone. We will not know each others hugs. We will not share gaze the way we once did. But it’s for the best.

When I go I bring the potential for a relationship with you that transcends the physical reality we once knew. It won’t seem like that at first. It will be different communication and you will wonder if it was me and you will need to grow in discernment to tell when it is not.

My kiss will feel like breath. Instead of eating beside you, I will eat through you.
I will wash your feet still, but it will feel like peace returning into your being.

Earth is a type, a shadow. Of a far greater relationship.
What I offer will be more intimate. Instead of sharing what you are conscious of, our relationship will allow me to go to the innermost part of your being and surface things of which you are unaware. You will know the secrets of your heart through me.
I will allow you to know me in a deeper way too. I will share the depth of my heart in a way you could not take if we were both skinned sitting apart from each other.

There are times you will long for my hand to be once again on your face. This change is hard. There are some places you will visit where you will always think of me and remember me and long for me to be as I was. The pain will take your breath away.

When you feel that way, remember I feel that way too. Not that it should be as it was, But that I long for you in the way it shall be. A better way. With no more room for miscommunication. A way with no more painful breaches. A way that will reveal the truth that our time here on earth was but a model of a better way to come.

You may feel at times that I torture you, to be with you but to not be with you the way you once know me. Take heart, little ones. I too, feel the angst at any separation between us. This is partaking of the fellowship of my sufferings. And so I go, to prepare a place….where we never have to be a part again.

If you were his disciple, how would you respond?