Dear Losses,
You are one constant companion.
You creep in uninvited, you come in unsuspected.
You’re like our silent conspiracy.
We don’t want to meet you that often, and we’d rather not talk about you that frequent.
But who’d deny it?
Having you in life always hurts.
You jab us on our rawest nerves, and wound us with wakes of pain we know not how to close.
Perceived or real, you catch us unaware.
You handicap us for our future and tell us that there’s no future.
You cloud our vision, and give us no reason for hope, yet we know, this we know:
You’re just here for a season.
You’re not our forever portion.
Even the toughest of times will pass, and every moment of failure will one day fade.
You may be our present reality, but you’ll never be our eternal identity.
And when life’s made up of your blend, of love and loss, of gathering and giving, of crafting and destroying, we know that it’s only through experiencing you that we can experience the potential for change, the opportunity for growth.
A rose always loses its bud to blossom, a seed always falls before it sprouts —-
that those who suffer in silence can rejoice for the rain , and those who stifle deep sorrow can wait for the blessings that come through every broken soul.
“Men of the breaking hearts had a quality about them not known to or understood by common men. They habitually spoke with spiritual authority. They had been in the presence of God, and they reported what they saw there.” (A.W Tozer, The Pursuit of God)
And so we say:
We will not live avoiding you, we will not exist denying you.
We will overcome you.
We won’t rationalise you, we won’t overcomplicate you.
We will deal with you.
We will grieve over you, we will let go of you.
We will pick up all the left-over pieces of you, we will learn every lesson revealed by you.
We will love in spite of you, laugh in the midst of you.
We will live on despite of you.
We will last through though you may linger. We will long for the breakthrough that comes through burying you.
And we will rise.
We will run to God and not away from God. His light swallows our darkness, and even our darkest dark is as light to Him. He sees, He knows, He heals. And because He is our well, we will be well.
We will feast our eyes on the Word, and not fixate our minds on the problem. We know that no amount of self-help talk, nor human will alone can heal the depth of pain that’s in us. That no mountain of success, nor pleasure of entertainment can meet the need for truth that’s in us. It’s a space only the Word incarnate, infallible, inerrant alone can fulfil. That He alone brings the fire and sets our bruised reeds aflame. So we pray for the greater anointing, we seek for the horn of oil, and this is the way we get past our past , and unstuck our pain with praise.
We will hang our hearts on love, we will nail our hope on Christ. Especially when losses make us takers rather than givers. Especially when hurts make us believe we are orphans rather than sons. This we declare and decreed: that we have been born again into a living hope and we are now fathered. Because of who we have become, we can love, and we will hope, because He’s driven our hopelessness away. Love that heals is love that’s been healed. And we can love deeply because of His deep love that overcomes the gravest pain.
We will mend every broken wing and spread them out again. We won’t allow grief to mark us, but only grace to make us. And He is grace, and He is banner, and He sings over us with love. That there are stars for the dark of nights and fresh starts for every teary soul . He brings songs to the parched of hearts, and makes every barrenness bloom. He who sustains us, now lives within us. He amazingly heals us and ushers us home. This makes us whole.