Life is Loss

There is one very significant event I purposefully left out of my previous 2012 recap for it deserves much more than a mere 'shout out' - Our dear friend, Ben Feldman, earned his wings and returned home on December 22, 2012 and now sits at the right hand of our utmost dear Father.

To be honest, I haven't been able to finish this post for almost a whole year as I haven't been able to adequately put words to my beliefs and emotions during this time of grief. October 2, 2013 - those feelings of grief resurfaced when my grandpa, James "Jim" Robert Loudon, too returned home after 72 years of precious life here on earth. As I continue to experience life and witness death, there is a lot I continue to wonder with uncertainty (mostly how glorious heaven is, what the transition to heaven is like, what do those who have preceded us look like in heaven and ultimately what does our Father's face really look like - I can't wait to see it one day :)) but what I do know and what I dub as certainty, is that death is inevitable and it is joyful. Whether expected or unexpected so to say, young or old, rich or poor, big or small, weak or strong, black or white, healthy or unhealthy, we are called home and we are called home at specific times purposefully.  Whether or not we can pinpoint that purpose or bundle of purposes today, tomorrow, or at all during our fleshly existence - death is intentional for the good of God and all His children.

As Ann Voskamp states in One Thousand Gifts, "Awakening to joy awakens to pain. Joy and pain, they are but two arteries of the one heart that pumps through all those who don't numb themselves to really living. Yet I know it in the vein and the visceral: life is loss."  We enter this life to live and then to return home. We live to lose our life and fall to the feet of our Father of the throne. Period. That is life. Life is loss.  We so graciously are given the gift of life and with great purpose to find and walk in the light of faith through the shadows of darkness in all that we do until the day we are called home. Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy and forgiveness, peace and patience, strength and courage, if no shadows fell over life?  If we didn't experience weakness and hardship, pain and loss - how could our sinful flesh need and know, rely on and long for Alpha and Omega?

"All our days are struggle and warfare but that endlessly waged spirit to spirit combat with Satan is the ferocious thrash for joy.  Evil is a shadow - a hole in the goodness of God. Evil is all that lacks the goodness of God, a willful choice to turn away from the full goodness of God to that empty of His goodness. All God makes is good. Can it be that, that which seems to oppose the will of God actually is used of Him to accomplish the will of God? That which seems evil only seems so because of perspective, the way the eyes see the shadows. Above the clouds, light never stops shining." - Ann Voskamp.

Perspective is defined as "point of view; how we envision." From the book of Deuteronomy 32:39, "See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides Me; it is I who put death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal." Likewise, words whispered to Julian of Norwich, "See that I am God. See that I am in everything. See that I do everything. See that I have never stopped ordering my works, nor ever shall, eternally. See that I lead everything on the conclusion I ordained for it before time began, by the same power, wisdom and love with which I made it. How can anything be amiss?"

For me, I feel the closest to God and the truest form of joy when death prevails. Why? Because it's the greatest reminder of his undying love and mercy for us.  Do not mistake my words, death is heartbreakingly and soul-shockingly painful. One day, one hour, one minute, one second we are standing. We are conversing. We are touching. We are laughing. We inhale. We exhale. Our heart beats. We are flesh. And in one second our flesh fails to exist and our spirit takes primary form. But through joy and pain, through life and loss, God's meticulous work prevails.

So all of this to acknowledge our precious gems who walked this earth fearlessly and with purpose and have been called home to a place far greater than human comprehension. As I am deeply and selfishly saddened by your earthly exit, I have never felt more joy knowing you are completely pain free, in our Father's glorious arms where you were always intended to be.  I am eternally grateful and blessed to have been touched by your presence and purpose.  Until I see you again, I love you.

"Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand." Isaiah 14:24.