Sitting On The Lost Side Of Loss.

Loss is excruciating.

Loss of life, loss of love, loss of job, loss of dreams.

Loss doubles us over, knocks us down, and sits on our hearts.

It follows us into every corner of our lives, every crevice of our hearts, never-ceasing, never resting.

It’s not something that you fight. there’s no winning such a battle.

It’s something that is thrown at you with such force that you have no choice but to catch it.

A lot of people that I love very much are struggling with loss right now. And so, I too, am struggling as I mourn for them and with them. There are no magic words to heal or comfort,  no wand to wave it all away.

 I do believe there is something important for all of us in the midst of loss,  gifts of sorts that we can grab ahold of. We cannot always bear to look for them right away as we are trying so hard to just survive. But as the raw baby skin on our hearts begins to flesh over, we start to see the little gifts we received along the way.

Last night I lay in bed, surrounded by my bible, my journal, and two devotional books. I was looking for comfort, for answers, for peace. I cam across this quote, chicken scratched onto a tiny piece of paper, and pressed into the the pages of Job:

“Knowing that God suffers with us doesn’t make our pain disappear or explain the enigma of suffering, but it does enable us to keep trusting God and believing in His goodness, even in the midst of the inexplicable. We may not be able to trace God’s hand in what has happened, but we can still trust God’s heart. And trusting God’s heart encourages us to turn toward Him, instead of away from Him, to turn toward the cross and the road we must travel to get there.”

{Stephen Seamands in 

Wounds that Heal

}

I often feel abandoned by God in seasons of pain and loss. When I see others walk through it, I am angry at God for abandoning them. I forget over and over again that He is near us always and that nothing can separate us from His love. How quick I am to doubt His goodness, His sovereignty. I forget that He lived a life of alienation, carried His own cross, gasped for breath mounted to its splintering wood, wore a crown of thorns dripping with His own blood, drank vinegar from a nasty sponge. He suffered big time, more than the Bible could even describe.

He gets it.

So I sit here cross-legged on the rug, contemplating loss and the pain that it brings, I am humbled once again by how much I try to understand and how little I actually need to understand.

Though we may suffer, He is present. Though He may feel so far away, He is near.