Let's just say one day you were walking along the sidewalk, and you realised your car is gone.
While you were looking in disbelief, you reach for your pocket and your wallet is stolen.
The dog you were walking suddenly took off, and you soon lose sight of it.
You walked a long way home, only to realise that the bank has repossessed your house.Your spouse has left you for another person and has left the divorce papers on the table.
The next day, you got into work and found out that you were made redundant.
How much loss can a human take?
How much loss can a Christian take?
I used to think that people will just fall sad, depressed, hopeless and perhaps they might turn to suicide. After all, do we even believe that such misfortunes can fall unto one person unless you are Job in the bible?
Then I realised a very strange thing.
When you lose everything, or at least perhaps the top 5 things that are important to you, life doesn't stop. Cruel as it is, the world will still spins, people around you still smile, when you lose the top 6 things of your life.
Strangely enough, after you have lost enough, cried the tears, tore the bible in anger, cursed life and hopefully not God, losing the 8th, 9th, and 10th no longer really mattered. Losing the 11th starts to feel like a normal routine. Somewhere between the 13th and seeing your ex-spouse posting a photo of someone else on facebook, you wonder why you haven't died from all the loss yet.
One day when you wake up and find there is nothing precious left to lose, that is when you laugh back at the wind. You will bring out your 14th, 15th and 16th of my ole-so-preeecious, and offer them up if this losing business is going to stay. Why not lose everything at one go and have nothing more to lose?
That is when losing starts losing its effect on you.
That is when you triumph the loss.
To be more specific, you triumph over the fear of loss.
It is not being fatalistic. When you laugh at having nothing left to lose, you gain a new sense of freedom over fear. Have you not tossed and turned over a time when you might lose your job, lose a love one, lose a house, lose your health and lose your money?
I hate to say this, you are not likely to die as a direct consequence of it. Maybe other than health.
In fact, the knowledge that you can technically lose no more is very liberating. That is when life unfolds a new chapter, and you now know how to survive a life in a very dry and lifeless desert. You know what you are made of, and more importantly, what your faith is made off. You get a revelation of the things you once relied upon, and how your life did not have to depend on having those to live. You become less panicky about future loss, knowing full well that you are made to weather storms of loss, and to enjoy when there are plentiful.
Finally you understand that when someone says "God loves you", you know it does not only come in the form of jobs, money, house, marriage, and kids. It comes when you still believe that He loves you when you have nothing.
Then you gain for yourself an immeasurable fistful of faith - the kind that fills you up despite of what little left you have.
Although I have to warn, losing and not possessing are never great feelings. It would not be. Given a right frame of mind, I would never choose to be inadequate. However if I was dealt with a full suite of losses, then I only pray that I have enough mettle to see it through till the sun rises for another day.
I thank God for what I once possessed, and I thank God for showing me His faith and love through my losses.
