What? Loss, a Benefit?

This year, the season of giving and love got a strange kick-start in our family. The last week has been punctuated with loss after loss. Some losses are irreparable, like the sad death of my son's beloved family pet. Other losses, despite being things that can eventually be in some way replaced, tug at our heartstrings because of emotional ties . But pain is pain. It riffles through our being with vestiges of grief--denial, anger, depression, bargaining with God and with ourselves. Eventually, with time, the negative emotions will segue into grudging acceptance. Wouldn't it be wonderful, though, if there was a way to cut through the pain part and skip right into acceptance and, dare I say, joy? What would you say if I told you that it is possible?

As I struggled yesterday with the loss of a treasured keepsake, the Holy Spirit reminded me of something. I knew that in the great scheme of things my little clipboard was nothing. I had not lost a loved one. The little clipboard could be replaced with another, but the memories of the picture it bore of my grandchildren and the memories of making it as a sample for one of the last classes I taught were lost with it. As silly as it was to grieve over such an inconsequential item, my heart ached. And then ... then I remembered.

I remembered what I had learned from a fellow missionary friend. Whenever she and her family moved to another home, she would go room by room in the house they were leaving and ask God to bless the family that would live there next and lead them to Him if they did not yet know Him. Although she didn't know the results of every such prayer, she did learn of glorious results in one instance. The new family that moved in to their vacated home began to go to our church and met Jesus! Eventually the father even became the pastor of one of our mission churches! Coincidence? Or the result of answered prayer? We believe the latter.

As God brought this memory to mind, joy began to well up within my being. What if instead of wallowing in my pain, I focused outward? What if I prayed that God bless the person who found my beloved clipboard and lead them to Him if they didn't yet know Him?

In the hope that something good could come out of my loss, I began to pray in that vein. At other times when I had exercised the discipline of giving thanks over a loss (Ephesians 5:18-20), the pain had eventually dissipated ... but this time? You could have blown me over with a feather when, as I prayed, all my pain morphed into total joy. I tell you the truth, real, all-encompassing joy flooded my soul. My clipboard could be the springboard for someone's salvation! Forget the pain of loss--this "loss" could very well be the means of someone coming to Jesus through my prayers!

During this season when life is full of rushed business and the pressure of so many activities backed upon each other, it is sometimes difficult to sense the joy that the birth of Christ should command. This year I invite you to step back ... and embrace the losses in your life. What things have you lost that God could very well use to bring someone to Him through your prayers? And if you have lost a loved one--and how well I know how very, very hard it is to go through the first of anything without that loved one, the first birthday, the first holiday, the first Christmas--let your heart and mind reach out and embrace someone else you know who has suffered such a loss. Don't let your pain go to waste! Use it as a catalyst to bless others!

Our pain is not the endgame. God's purpose is not to squash us or cripple us with debilitating pain. No, He desires for our pain to be a springboard for prayer. And, as we pray, as we seek Him and His glory to be revealed in our lives, the image of our Creator is reflected in us, His treasured creation, more and more.

Do not allow yourself to wallow in your hurt. That is what the devil, our arch enemy wants, he who comes to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10;10). He does not want you to come to the realization that this transient pain is in fact a God-given bridge, a bridge to something better, something greater. A bridge to something wonderful that God desires to do in your life.

There was a reason why the Psalmist wrote, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" (Psalm 30:5). Every night is followed by dawn. Every season of pain will be followed by a time of joy. Rejoice, and embrace this promise of the Lord for you. And, as you do so, know that your life is just about to get better!

"Whereby (knowlege of God) are given unto us exceeding great and precious promsies: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature ... And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:4-8).