Loving Loss

Loving Loss
Caleb Carruth

"too good for me
our conversations weren't enough
shallow smile painted words and my selfish motives
passed my flawed defenses
a trial by fire

someday I will be free
and I know that this pain won't last forever
for it all will be a memory

I used to think I was deep
while staring into my shallow ends
the ends that justified my means
but I know I'm just like the others
falling when near the water

here I come to your feet and as I am my God save me

enter season's change another love is lost
and with the leaving of the weather's wind
another fragrance gone when will it end

but alas I love the loss"

What can I say? I look all around me and I am quickly sobered. A pastor dieing in the middle of a baptism in front of 800 people, an aunt in ICU, a little boy who is battling a “tummy bug” that we call cancer (http://www.connorcruse.com) and the list goes on…Right now as you read this, there is probably a running list that is forming in your own mind of all the ‘stuff’ and people that you know of who are in hospitals and valleys. And yet we claim our God is good? Why? How? Because HE IS. I was running this morning and the Lord and I were talking. I was telling him that it doesn’t feel like eight months since my dad went to be with him. Eight months is still just an arms length away and the reality that eight months and five days ago I was sitting in a hospital room doing a cross word puzzle and watching a movie curled up in his bed with him is ever so real. Are we really that mortal? One second I am here and have a pulse and the next I could be returning to the dust that I ultimately came from. And still, he makes my life of value and significance IN HIM. With him I have the privilege of being apart of something bigger than myself, bigger than death. And he also brought It to my attention today that if I hadn’t tasted pain on this earth then I wouldn’t long for my eternal home like I do now, just like if I hadn’t come to grips with my inadequacies then I wouldn’t find myself begging him to do a work in my heart. I can’t but HE can (AND IS), I am nothing and he is more than enough. My cup is empty, not a drop to be found, but HIS overflows and fills mine. Everyday the depraved and wayward human I am, needs to be reminded of how disposable and futile my day will be if it isn’t spent investing in eternal things, things unseen, if it isn’t spent seeking Him. O God, save me from myself.

MORE THAN CONQUERORS (if you have some extra time today read Romans 8 but here is just a small exert, this spoke much needed truth into this week for me….)

Romans 8: 28-38
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called, those he called he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justified. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-MORE THAN THAT, who was raised to life-is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” NO IN ALL THESE THINGS WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US. FOR I AM CONVINCED THAT NEITHER DEATH NOR LIFE, NEITHER ANGELS NOR DEMONS, NEITHER THE PRESENT NOR THE FUTURE, NOR ANY POWERS, NEITHER HEIGHT NOR DEPTH, NOR ANYTHING ELSE IN ALL CREATION, WILL BE ABLE TO SERPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD THAT IS IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.”