The Years the Locust Have Eaten

“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—”  Joel 2:25a

Loss. There are many losses in a lifetime. Some are minor and are soon forgotten. Others are harder to accept and harder to forget. And then there are some losses that are so devastatingly painful that they will never be forgotten.
If you are a rabid sports fan, it disappoints and hurts when your teams loses. But that kind of loss fades into insignificance when natural disasters such as tornadoes or hurricanes come through and leave houses in shreds and personal possessions scattered everywhere.

We can experience loss of health, loss of vigor and vitality, and loss of independence. One night my husband, who was living with congestive heart failure, pitched a little fit. He said, “No one ever told me about old age. Why didn’t somebody warn me? I didn’t know it would be like this.” My sister-in-law, Ann Eyster, said, “After age forty the body becomes a maintenance problem.”

The most painful loss of all is the loss of someone you love very much, through distance, disputes, divorce, or death. My smart, beautiful mother was my best friend. After she died following a short illness, I thought to myself, “I didn’t know it was possible to hurt this much and still live.  Theloss of a beloved person can be excruciating. And yet, unfortunately, death is a part of our world, an integral part of life on planet earth.

Whatever our loss, the grief that follows can be almost overwhelming. And there is no way around grief. We just have to go through it. We can ignore it for periods of time. We can focus on something else and forget about it for awhile, but then it washes over us again like ocean waves pound against the shoreline. Even when the edge of grief has been dulled by the passing of time, missing the person who is gone never ends. Sometimes I think our hearts must look like chunks of Swiss cheese, with so many holes in them from the losses of life.

These are sad, mournful thoughts. I have been looking at the empty part of the half full glass. But we can concentrate on the half full part. Certainly we do well to focus on what we do have and be grateful for it rather than continuing to mull over our losses. If there are some things we can no longer do because of age and/or infirmities, we can forget about what we can’t do and enjoy what we can do. And we can remember that what we have lost on earth we will regain in heaven along with so much more. Sometimes the most we can do is to hold on tightly to God’s hand through our losses and grief, do the best we can while are are on earth, and anticipate eternity.

Father, when the winds of heartache and loss blow in our lives, may we hold tightly to Your hand and eagerly anticipate our reunions in heaven. Amen.