Faith and Loss

How do we reconcile our faith with profound loss?  How do we make sense out of something that doesn't make sense?  It seems that I'm spinning my wheels trying to find some sense in the midst of this great loss. In a sense, I guess I'm trying to figure God out...trying to catch a glimpse of His plan but it's impossible for me to see right now.  I sit here, in the middle of my grief, piling up my ashes around me thinking that somehow that will help. I'm wrestling with God...wrestling with "the plan", working my brain into a frenzy trying to figure out what's going on - what I'm supposed to do with all this emotion. Today, in this moment...I must confess that I haven't got a clue...not one inkling of an idea about the what, where and how of it all.

I know that my Dad is in Heaven.  On the one hand, I'm fully aware of his absence from his physical body but on the other hand I find it unfathomable that he is gone.  I keep thinking that somehow this has been a terrible mistake...that it was the wrong body in that ICU bed...that at any moment I'll pick up the phone and he'll be on the other end.  My mind knows he is gone from this world but my heart is having a most difficult time catching up.  I've heard it said that the heart wants what the heart wants...my heart wants my Dad, here and healthy.  I know, I know, it's selfish of me.  My profound loss is Heaven's profound gain...my tragedy is Heaven's rejoicing.  I don't mean to say that Heaven rejoices in my sorrow but that the loss which causes my great sorrow caused great rejoicing in Heaven.  I know that I know that I know that my Dad heard those wonderful words of welcome from the Heavenly Father, Well done, good and faithful servant...welcome home!"

How do I reconcile my faith with my loss... TRUST!  In the middle of the dark night of the soul...I will choose to trust Him.  Sometimes, I feel like I'm starting from scratch and more often than not I need to strip away all the trappings of religion and denomination and get back to basics...get back to the heart of the matter.  I'm not there yet but I have the desire to get there...to learn to trust the Lord again...or maybe to trust Him fully for the first time.  I'm so glad that I serve a Saviour who is acquainted with my grief and understands my human-ness.  Who suffered in human flesh so that He could identify with my human flesh.  The Heavenly Father can absorb a lot and I'm grateful for that fact.  Right now, I seem to be somewhere between faith and my loss. There's an old pop song that comes to mind when I think of where I am in my relationship with my Saviour.  It's a song sung by The Four Seasons called "Working my Way Back to You" and the lyric that came to me just now was "I'll keep working my way back to you, babe, with a burning love inside..."  I just changed "babe" to "Lord". 

So, that's what I'll keep doing...working my way back to you Lord with a burning love inside.