Walking Through Loss

Nearly every other summer I do the sacred work of transitioning my children from one hometown to another. I hear it all the time, “You do this so much you must get used to it.” Honestly, no. We never get used to this. As our bedsheet and pillows are folded into cardboard boxes, I guide my children to gather their treasured memories and tuck them away into the safest places of their hearts.

Uprooting and replanting is a tender job. Exposing the roots leaves one feeling vulnerable, standing in a time and place where you realize the great loss and simultaneously tremble without the nurturing soil of your future pressed safely around you. For us, it is a familiar song that replays in our minds. The song may soften after several repetitions, but the melody still aches with the weight of loss, tremendous loss.

On this side of heaven we can’t escape it. Loss is all around us. We will loose jobs and friends and homes and loved ones. The pain of loss will twist its way into our lives and mark us forever. But what if loss is really an invitation? What if God knew that our hearts would be crippled with loss, so he wrote in between each strained melody a sweet refrain that beckons us to come, to walk with our God Almighty. The God who brings calamity and brings happiness in their perfect time.

I think God does intermingle loss with an invitation. He wrote it into scripture when He told Abraham, “Go.” Leave your land, your home, your family, and take your wife and go to a land I will show you. The Hebrew word “go” is the same for “walk,” as in Enoch walked with God and Noah walked with God and Abraham would go on to walk with God.

Loss is an invitation to walk with God. To step-by-step walk with God through all the twisted pieces of your pain filled story. To cry with Him. Talk to Him. Process your loss with Him. And find the hope and grace from the One who redeems loss with an invitation of nearness to perfect love.