“It’s not what happens that counts, it’s the love with which you face it.”

By Bruce C. Johnson

“Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

Philippians 3:7-11

 

ummer after sophomore year in college, I was at an airport to fly to England, where my family lived. You’d think that was a happy, exciting moment. It was anything but. I had left the bedside of a grandmother I loved, in her final illness, to be with my mother, who also was in her last illness. 

As I waited to buy my ticket, I chatted with a man who had traveled to England many times. We talked about a land that was home to neither of us, but which we had grown to love. Since he had known England longer, I asked him how it had changed. He smiled and replied, “I asked an English friend that recently. He said, ‘We’ve lost an empire, but we’ve become a lot nicer.’” 

There was a similarity between what England and I faced. We both lost what seemed to us like everything. Yet, as I learned that summer, it’s not what happens that counts, it’s the love with which you and loved ones face it. The deaths of my mother, my grandmother and, unexpectedly, my grandfather – within a few months – hurt deeply. They hurt still. But there was a deepened discovery, by our family, of the love that sustained us and the departed loved ones we will see again: the love of God who may not spare us loss, as Jesus was not spared, but whose Undying Love is with us. 

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God, whatever we lose, You stand with us. And if we stand with You, we grow closer to Christ, who gave up everything in His death – and received everything when You raised Him. It is frightening to face loss, but You are stronger than fear. Never leave us. Stay with us through all our fear, all our pain.