Living with Loss

by Harold Ivan Smith

Thursday, November 19, 2009

I rehearsed my words of congratulations as I waited for the news that my good friend had been elected a university president. Surely, the trustees would recognize my friend's leadership abilities and vision. My friend was not elected. I struggled with what to say to him. In our post-non-election conversation, I mainly listened to his feelings and his fatigue after sitting through the board meeting, ballot after ballot, as the votes were announced and the opportunity was given to another person. Because my friend has a deep commitment to God's will I am not worried about him. He will receive other opportunities for leadership. For some individuals, however, a particular loss like this is a pivotal turning point in their faith journey.

Sometimes we mourn what we had and lost. Often we mourn what we hoped would, in time, be ours, a family member's, or a friend's. Commonly, would-be comforters grapple with the futility of words to soothe the ache of disappointment. "Maybe next time . . ." Sometimes, in a moment of raw honesty, we have to acknowledge our doubts about "a next time." Sometimes, losses are temporary and a part of a larger goal.

While working on a book project in Mexico, I was fascinated by my driver's narrative of loss. As a young father, he abandoned everything that was familiar to him and made his way north to work a construction job in Los Angeles. For 10 years, his family, friends, neighborhood, and holiday traditions, were "gone." The temporary loss, however, gave him an opportunity to build a nest egg to provide for his family's future. He kept reminding himself not of the losses, but of a future.

Early in a loss, some individuals are too numb to audition words to wrap around the loss. Some turn bitter, others turn reflective. After the death of his two-hour-old son, Lewis Smedes experienced the shattering. He eventually concluded, "Everything, at least every important thing that happens to us, is a snippet in our continued story, the life story we are writing with our choices. Every episode in our story becomes the raw material for the next episode. And what we write next depends on how we interpret the previous chapter." (Choices: Making Right Decisions in a Complex World)

Recently I asked a class to name all the losses they could imagine. They identified 128! Many individuals attempt to juggle multiple losses. While common losses like death of spouse or child or parent, divorce, loss of job, topped the list, participants also listed things they'd experienced such as loss of confidence, loss of home country, loss of a first language, loss of future, loss of savings, and loss of hope. Enduring a loss, faithful individuals come to appreciate the hymn text, "Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul."* On occasion, I have sung that in my heart but could not force the words across my lips. The loss hurt too much.

Whatever the loss, the one who has experienced the loss needs to try to describe the pain, to voice those words aloud, and to find someone to "receive" their narrative and lament. Unfortunately, some would-be comforters immediately unleash positivisms like, "When life gives you a lemon, make lemonade!" That is always easier to unleash than to hear. Even the well-meant observation can bruise an individual grappling with loss.

Naturally, the W-questions come up. Why? Why me? Why now? One once-powerful political leader commented, after his re-election defeat, "This is not the future I would have asked for." Sooner or later, almost everyone gets a chunk of future they would never have asked for. We can waste lots of energy rehearsing the questions rather than addressing what Victor Parachin calls the better question: "Now what?" How can I cooperate with God to bring resurrection and future out of this situation, this crisis, this mess, or this defeat?

Loss is never final unless we agree with it, unless we choose to ignore the lessons disguised in the loss. I have tried to live by one simple concept: Nothing can happen to me today that God will not see me through. It may be difficult, unfair, or unpleasant, but God will either see me through the crisis or bring enough friends to help me get through the loss. Moses, in his final words to the children of Israel, bluntly predicted their future insubordination. Then he concluded, "But if from there [that place of distress or defeat] you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart." (Deuteronomy 4:29).

Today, if you are a resident in Thereville, remember: God is the mayor of Thereville. I have long appreciated a quote attributed to that gifted author Anonymous, "God will never be permanently defeated by any of the circumstances of my life." Sometimes, while looking into loss, we find a new confidence in God's ability to redeem our losses. And we find new resources for survival. We find a renewed sense of the power of friends in our lives, and of the imaginative power of God. The old spiritual asks, "Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel?" Then what makes you think he won't "deliver" you"

Harold Ivan Smith is a thanatologist residing in Kansas City and is the author of The Grief Care Guide: Resources for Counseling and Leading Small Groups (Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2003). *Horatio Spafford, "It is Well with my Soul."

Holiness Today, November/December 2005

 

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