Loss

C. Dale German, D. Min.

uch a deep emotional sense of loss over a broken piece of plastic! It was well beyond the limits of rational sorrow. And the odd thing about it is that I still feel remorse even now, long after Mom’s death in 1990.

She had a corner four-tier, glass knick-knack rack in the bathroom of our family home. For as long as I can remember, it had been in the house where I grew up. After mom’s funeral, I decided to dismantle the glass rack, planning to move it to my own home—for sentimental reasons.

The four glass tiers were held together with plastic rods. In the process of dismantling the rack, one of the brittle rods broke and crumbled in my hands. In a moment of frustration, I threw the whole thing in the trash. Ever since, that insignificant glass-and-plastic rack has emotionally connected me to the loss of my mother, and every time I think of it, I miss her.

Irrational as the sense of loss of that old glass rack is, it still holds a grip on me emotionally. I understand it. I know it is really nothing. But still I remember the rack and miss my mom.

Life is full of losses—big and small. Losses happen to people of all cultures. On “9/11” (2001) there were nearly 3000 casualties in the terrorist attacks that day in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., including passengers in the four jetliners, the Trade Center employees, and the 411 rescue workers who responded to the destruction of the twin towers in New York. In May, 2007, a violent storm system swept through Greensburg, Kansas, spawning a tornado that destroyed most of the town. One year later, a huge tornado hit northeastern Oklahoma and southeastern Missouri, leaving 18 dead. Just two days later, in Sichuan province of China, an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 struck without warning, leaving up to 70,000 dead, nearly 375,000 injured, and 4.8 million people homeless. Incredible losses, all!

However, for the Christian the reality of loss is only half of true reality, and we do not have to choose between one and the other.  Christ’s people live simultaneously in a world of what someone has called “also realities.” The two realities are connected, yet very different, and the one is just as real as the other.

It was martyred missionary Jim Elliott who said,

“He is no fool to give what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

A magnificent declaration of two realities!

For the Christian the losses in life are balanced with the gains of faith. Not just faith in anything, but faith in God. Faith in One who has promised to be with us in loss, to sustain us in loss, to comfort us in loss, and to give us hope in the “also reality” of His promise—to make a way (in the midst of loss) where there seems to be no way, to remove unmovable mountains (loss), to comfort those who mourn (in their loss), to bind up the broken hearted (in their loss), and to set the captives free (from their loss).

The apostle Paul turned the idea of loss up-side down. Instead of sorrowing loss, he tossed it up in the air and smacked it out of the ball park in a home-run-hitting act of faith. He said, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him…”  (Phil 3:8-9 NIV).

Be challenged and encouraged with this from the Word of God:

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful” (Heb. 10:23 NIV).