The experience of loss is the paradox of life; life that becomes
death. Loss is suffering in one word; to have someone or something we value
taken away.
The experience of loss would be hard enough if it only happened
once. But the fact is it happens several times, perhaps many times, and
sometimes too many times to count, over one lifetime.
One thing I’ve often thought about is whether we have the
potential to master loss.
It is only been recently that I’ve come to discover that loss,
as a general and overall concept, cannot be mastered. We may master a certain
kind of loss, accepting the grief as part and parcel of life. But that doesn’t
mean we master every kind of loss. And I think God can teach us something in
this; not least of which, this reality prevents us from becoming conceited
(this aligns with what the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10). He was
given something painful that had to be endured to prevent him from becoming
conceited.
What makes being human so hard is that none of us at any time
can predict just when loss will occur. It comes like a thief in the night. And
only when it arrives do we comprehend that it was ever present as a potential
reality from our very beginning.
Loss is impossibly hard. Anyone who has been touched by this
suffering of having had someone beloved or something valuable taken away from
us knows that grief is a pain that never truly leaves during the entire season
we experience it. And in most cases, closure for grief is a myth. It never
happens that way. It just so happens that we learn to live a new normal, which
on the surface of it is a sad and stark reality.
I have found personally that the greatest gift of loss is
learning to die to self. It is never an easy lesson to learn, but it is always
worth learning.
I call this the Revenant Blessing. It is a broad and general
lesson; once loss has swept our hope away on a torrent to oblivion, loss may
not blindside us to that degree again.
We are given some gift of resilience that I liken better to a
hopeful resignation. Nothing unimportant wins our covetous hearts over again.
But this doesn’t mean we won’t experience grief again. Losses
will continue to occur. The bigger and more complicated our families and lives
are, for instance, the more susceptible we are to loss.
We may well have been broken by loss, and we may have learned
the lessons of Christ in dying to self; this doesn’t mean that we are fortified
against every form of loss, for different losses bring different costs and
requirements of us.
There is a wisdom in life that helps us as losses come. This is
not about imagining that being human can be made easy. On the contrary, as we
accept that being human is hard, we are given to a deeper, more gifted,
experience of life. We are matured as we come to accept there are many things
we cannot change.
What makes being human so hard is that this life is so
unpredictable, and we cannot exercise supreme control over our thoughts, our
emotions, and others’ thoughts and emotions. If only we could! But then if we
could we wouldn’t live a life capable of love.
Perhaps we have suffered many losses already. Maybe there are some
losses yet to be experienced. What stands us in good stead is our acceptance of
the day; to take each day as it comes, gratefully, as the mystery each day is.
And whether the day involves trial or tribulation or a mix of both matters less
than the fact that the universe spins the same way every day.
What makes being human easier is when we finally arrive in that
place where we don’t need to control the day, other people, our circumstances,
the weather, or anything else.
This is an ‘arrival’ to strive for, and that gives enduring loss
meaning, which fuels hope.
I know this one thing for sure, however. I’m so glad of the
person I’ve become because — in spite
— of the grief I’ve endured. I would not be the person I am today had it not
been for the things I’ve suffered.
Empathy and compassion are the gifts borne of great suffering.
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