SOMETHING interminable happens: a
loved one is lost; a marriage partner (to death or divorce); a son or daughter;
a mother or father; a career ends or a dream is over; any combination of these
— any loss. It’s a loss. And whatever’s lost isn’t coming back! Wow, I said it.
I acknowledged it. It’s real. And nothing I think or say or do is changing what
cannot any longer be changed.
Loss is like that: something’s changed and it cannot any longer be changed back
the way it was. What was no longer is.
What we never prepared for now has taken
place. And feelings, to that end, those we never anticipated, come to define our experience of life.
Not all experience, just some of it: missing what’s lost is inordinately normal.
That’s because it’s so logical to miss 1) what we’re attached to, and 2) what we
can never have.
The significant some: not all of recovering loss is missing what’s lost. But it’s a
significant some. It only needs to be a flicker of a moment every month or so,
or randomly in a year, and there are shockwaves as tremors that shoot out from
the soul into our lives for a time to come. It’s the unpredictable nature of
such an event we dislike the most. If only we could tap into what causes the fretful
ruction within our emotions and spirit. It’s possibly our vapidly panicked lack
of control, and not the unearthed feelings of grief, that we detest most.
Don’t
dismiss what you miss: it’s
important to be honest about what’s real. It’s very real to miss someone we
loved when they’re not around or gone. We should not dismiss what we feel. In
not dismissing what we miss we allow our acknowledgment of truth to heal us for
the moment of healing we need. It’s in recognising how we feel that we add to
our learning about what’s real. When we’re being real, God’s communicating to
us who
we actually are. We’re blessed when we look up and listen.
Loss
is permanent: what’s lost is
gone and never really re-discoverable. Although we may recapture the essence of
what was lost in some way later, the feeling of what is will never quite be the same; it won’t ever measure up to what was. But it doesn’t mean that future
experiences can’t eclipse the past ones. And certainly hopes for reconnecting
with loved ones in eternity — those hopes are real, and they may never be more
cogent.
Hope
for a new normal: there’s always
hope in the midst of loss for what God’s doing in us. Loss is never truly the
end; it’s a beginning of what’s now new. The new normal on God’s side of the
ledger is always a hope resplendent in light for life.
Whatever we do in life, when it comes to loss,
don’t dismiss what you miss.
© 2015 Steve Wickham.
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