The Joy of Loss - Edition #3

Thursday, March 2nd, 2006

An interesting day this has already been… I have been having some leg pain now for well over a year. I checked webMD.com just a while a go, and come to find out, the possibilities that popped up concerned me… I did not know that prostate cancer could cause leg pain, nor blood clots… although I wasn’t really surprised about the blood clots. The prostate cancer was a huge surprise, though. I once had polyps on my prostate in middle school and I know my prostate is enlarged… I seriously have to talk to my doctor about that. WOW! And today, preseason starts officially for the Rangers. The preseason in the majors opened yesterday, with Chicago taking a loss from Colorado. And tonight is a night of all games in Basketball… the winner of the Mavs/Spurs game will have first place in the west and the loser will rest in fourth place in the playoff bracket. In a matter of 9 days, my brother will be married, knocking off the last of my parents’ children.

The Joy of Loss – Edition #3

Good night, I am not in the mood to have one today… I haven’t missed one this year… I took my pain medication and it’s not doing squat.

Psalm 69:29-30
29 I am in pain and distress; may your salvation, O God, protect me. 30 I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.

I have a friend who is going through a similar ordeal… my Aunt is ill with cancer as well… and of course, my leg is unbearable. Looking at Psalm 69, I think the best thing to pray for in all three of our situations is to pray for God’s protection… and in turn, I for one, will be singing the praise of my Lord, whether the other two do or not, that is for them to decide, but pray for all three of us, all the same.

Luke 15:4-7
4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

I have found something this morning that struck me… I thought of this scripture… with loss, I thought, comes searching. Now, over time with the death of my cousin, I searched… within my mind and heart and I couldn’t find any answers on my own. Despair sat in and then one day I met Jenny and became a disciple… and even through all these good things, the pain and loss of my cousin still haunted me. And I kept telling myself life is good, life is better, blah-blah-blah… all the things we tell ourselves to make the hurt and pain go away over such a loss… and this scripture hit me. Through the pain of it all, I realized that I hadn’t searched in the right place. I had lost the sheep and I was in distress over not finding it. In this case, God granted me closure. He let me find the sheep and take it home forever… albeit, this particular sheep was actually seeing that eventful tombstone and most importantly the date on it. I am somewhat struggling even still by the calendar… I remember last year, I struggled with getting sad and becoming depressed by March. I did get that way, but it wasn’t as bad as previous years. This year, the struggle begins a little today… the course of routine… you do it for a good chunk of you life, turning it around overnight isn’t really all that easy.

Turning it around, me being the sheep, I want to come back to the shepherd… I call out in the brush, being lost and wanting to be found. What sheep really wants to be lost in the wilderness, susceptible to the elements and predators? There are lions, bears, and evil-mean-bad-and-nasty things out there! I want the shepherd to help me, and when I am found, do you not know that I will rejoice right there with you?

Now, if this is the lost, they are stuck in the brush, predators all around waiting to feast on the poor sheep, who is screaming and bleating for its shepherd… what am I waiting for? I need to pick up my slingshot and a bunch of rocks and get busy! There is a loss out there waiting for me to find them and if I don’t, someone else will… Johnny Out.