Hellos and Goodbyes

Life Lately

Hello {{First Name | Friend}},

A bare branch with sneakers hanging by their laces.

Life can feel like a series of hellos and goodbyes. While meeting new friends is great, it often comes at the cost of others exiting your life — whether through job changes, moves, or death—goodbyes cannot be eliminated.

Our longtime friend and Chief Administrative Officer, Kori, resigned to take another job. She will be greatly missed by myself and the IDA Design team. It’s so hard to say goodbye. We celebrated Kori and her new beginnings with a chili cook-off. She will be missed along with Gortie her office companion. Jeni, a past IDA team member, stopped by too.

As we reminisced about old times, Jeni made this statement:

“I can’t wait for heaven where we will always be together and never have to turn the page with goodbyes.”

Jeni · a past IDA team member

Kori and the IDA team around the table at the chili cook-off, and Kori with Gortie, her office companion.

I love that statement. It makes me smile just thinking about it. No more goodbyes, no more wondering when we’ll see each other again. Just the joy of being together in the presence of God. And Gortie!

Story 7, Shoe Drop, from Drawn: a tree heavy with hanging shoes at dusk beside an old brick hall.

In my book Drawn I reflect on the importance of our earthly moments—the reality is all of our moments and all of our exchanges are important; yet, oftentimes we don’t realize it. How might our exchanges be different if we realized our moments were sacred, precious, and often rare?

Story 7, “Shoe Drop,” from my book Drawn

What I'm Learning

September was Suicide Prevention month. We had the opportunity to support the Brave Space organization by hosting an event at Streats.

Brave Space is dedicated to improving the lives of individuals struggling with mental health challenges, suicidal thoughts, and self-harm by creating spaces that foster vulnerability, connection, and honest conversation.

It was informative evening and also very sobering. Brave Space was founded in response to the growing mental health crisis affecting Michigan’s youth. Following the tragic loss of an 18-year-old student personally known to founder Alexis Rosado.

Three people smiling together at the Brave Space event, two in Brave Space t-shirts.

Your contribution helps to continue creating spaces where students feel seen, heard, supported, and empowered to show up authentically and bravely.

♥ Give to Brave Space

Closing Thought

The worst pain is the pain of human loss - I wrote about my own grief in RESOLVE:

“

At times, the unimaginable happens, and it simply defies logic or explanation. Like Job in the Old Testament, we can only sit amidst the wreckage and exist.”

Resolve · Mitch Bakker

If you are reading this and you have been impacted by suicide or an accidental death my heart goes out to you.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you can call or text 988 any time.

A note from Mitch

Thank you for turning these pages with me. If you are standing in a goodbye right now, remember that every one began as a hello, and none of them are ours to carry alone.

With gratitude,

Mitch Bakker

Faith. Life. The space in between.