loss

My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Psalms 73:26

Yesterday I had two friends who shared big losses with me. The first lost his sister, his closest sibling. She was immensely important to him, key to the life he is enjoying due to her sacrifices, and an inspiration to his wife and children. And they are each important to his sister’s family too — a favorite aunt and uncle, close cousins, sisters-in-law who found deep friendship. They have been separated by continents and oceans, but as divine destiny would have it, he was bound for his homeland today with a ticket already purchased weeks ago. He was going for a three-month visit, culminating in his oldest sisters wedding. Instead, yesterday he began packing clothes for a funeral, grieving, and finding himself at a loss for words with the God he so deeply loves.

My other friend shared how she received a phone call on Sunday night about the suicide of a close friend whom she and her husband had served with on the mission field many years ago. They’ve kept up their friendship over the years, and although they knew he was struggling with depression, no one saw this coming. My friend has sustained several big losses in the last year, and it has been a hard road.

Loss. So ugly and angry and bitter to bear. And sometimes the overwhelming nature of all we feel colliding inside can actually make us numb. Whether it’s an injury that ends hopes and dreams for the future, fatal and final words from a physician, a divorcing of hearts, or even the death of a beloved pet — loss comes in every shape and size, still none of them fit at all.

I’ve had my own losses through the years, so I don’t come to this topic without strings attached to my own heart. There was significant pain in my childhood. As an adult I have suffered loss of marriage and home and precious time with my children. I have lost jobs that I loved. Literally no area of my life has gone untouched by sorrow. I grieve with my friends when I see their pain. I know how deeply they love God, and yet see the desperation in their eyes as they grab for answers they cannot tie down. Like Job of old, they experience the ambivalence of trusting God. “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face.” (Job 13:15) We are ready to put up a fight, but we stand before a holy, and wholly other God.

Somehow, in this life of faith, we must hold onto the tension of both being honest with God, and believing he is good.  As we wrestle in those black holes in our universe, we who are made of dust may fail. But failure, my friends, is not the end. For even then we can cry out with the oldest God-loving songwriter we know, “though my flesh and my heart may fail, God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

He can be trusted. I will stake my life on that.