The Losses Of Life

and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. John 11:19 (NIV) 

My uncle's wife just died. She was my aunt by marriage, but I didn't think of her that way. I always thought of my aunt and uncle as a couple, I could not imagine one without the other. They were so close, it must seem to my uncle that a large part of him is now missing. 

When we suffer serious loss, it can feel like part of us has been carved out and taken away. When people we are close to are removed from us, it can be hard to reconcile the new reality we are left with. Change challenges our perspective, it can take us out of the familiar and leave us with scary new circumstances.  

We all know that life brings constant change our way, but we can feel poorly equipped to handle it. We need the Lord's help to adjust to the losses a transitory life throws at us. Adjusting to illnesses, a new diagnosis of disease, or the loss of friends and family can seem earth shattering. 

While we know deep down that everything in this life is transitory, it is easy to lose sight of that and begin to think nothing will ever change, that things will stay the same. That losses will not come. 

We can take our health for granted. We can take relatives and friends for granted. Too often it is only when we lose something that we truly begin to appreciate it. The reality of that loss can seem devastating, though we find a way to move on, somehow things are never quite the same again. 

Everything in life is transitory, and losses will surely come in one form or another. Yet our God always remains the same, and the promise He gives us of heaven and a better world to come does not change. God and His word, His precious promises will be fulfilled and can always be relied upon no matter what our losses in this life. 

Dear Lord, losses come to all of us, bringing pain and suffering. Comfort and give us peace, and help us never to forget that better things are coming, because Your precious promises are not transitory. Amen.

Karlton Douglas
Copyright 2017