Loss
As another year ends, my reaction is, "Good riddance."
Let's kick this one to the curb, and the sooner the better.
...ah, if only simply writing "2025" instead of "2024" made all this year's problems go away. Would that it were so easy.
I've decided that life is, basically, a process of losing things. At first there is gain - the ability to walk, to speak, to write, to reach things on shelves, to drive - but at some point serious loss gets added in, and the net gain starts going in the reverse.
You lose your childhood first best friend, and then your dear grandfather to brain cancer. You lose your innocence and naivete, your perfect figure, your razor-sharp memory. You start losing your hair, your sleep, your ability to digest things or eat at restaurants (or even grocery stores), your time, your sanity, your social life. You lose closeness with loved ones (both physical proximity and emotional connection), and the ability to trust and rely on those you once trusted and relied on the most.
And worst of all...you lose one of your favorite socks.
Sometimes loss is good, though. Sometimes having people walk out the door is actually a blessing, I'm told. (It follows, then, that sometimes me being that person is a blessing to others...)
There are losses that are pretty major that we're told would actually be beneficial, if one looks at things from a broader, eternal perspective.
The Bible talks about being pruned as though it were a good thing. Some losses end up producing more fruit in the end, it seems.
How does this work, exactly? You got me.
But, however much I have lost (oh, glorious chocolate...) and continue to lose, what I have lost is nothing compared to what Christ lost in stooping down to save me.
In His incarnation, life, and death He lost not only immortality and painlessness, but on the Cross the very love of the Father was taken from Him. There He was stripped of even his clothes and basic human dignity. He lost His friends, His reputation, His beard was plucked out, His skin was no longer intact. He lost even the ability to breathe deeply, and ultimately He lost His very life. In exchange He gained our sin, our pain, our death, and the full measure of the wrath of God.
Those, then, are the most important things that I have lost. Because of Christ I have lost eternal death and Hell. All condemnation has been taken from me. My sin is so far gone that it cannot be found, no matter how high or low one searches. God's wrath has vanished without a trace.
I may have just lost the last commercially-produced food source I had (and maybe the ability to eat squash, which I love and rely on). I may, this past year, have forfeited not only my dearest friendships but also the joy I once had of going to the place where God comes to us. I may have lost more hours of the day to having to hand-wash all of my dishes, lost more time to devote to showing love to others outside of my home, and lost an uncle to a sudden death, and an (adoptive) grandfather to more prolonged illness and age. And next year may be more of the same. But none of these losses, in the grand scheme of things, is more than a blip on the radar, compared with the things God has taken from me and laid on Christ instead, and compared with great inheritance that I have waiting for me in eternity, when he brings me to Himself.
He lost everything in order to gain me. He sold all that He had to redeem me. No loss was too great, no price too high.
So, goodbye, 2024; don't let the door hit you on the way out. While there were some good memories, on the whole I will not look back on you with fondness.
Here's to 2025. May I lose my selfishness, my pride, my foolishness, and my stubborn insistence on my own will. If those go missing, I will not be sad. In the meantime...come, Lord Jesus. Please, let this year be the year.
-M