LOST AND FOUND

...I have made you and I will carry you;

I will sustain you and I will rescue you. Job 46:4

The losses were subtle at first, hardly worth mentioning; a slight loss of strength and endurance, nothing major. But over a course of several months, the losses began making their unwelcome presence known. Gene has now lost the ability to go for walks, swim, ride his bike, go hiking, go to the gym, or just walk normally down the hall of our home or step outside to get the newspaper or mail. He is experiencing the loss of freedom and his independence to physically do normal life activities. Simple activities that most of us do easily and take for granted are being lost; once a muscle group has lost its strength it is gone forever. ALS is a devastating disease of losses. Gene is not the only one experiencing loss; everyone that knows and loves him is experiencing the loss of the active Gene that they have always known, enjoyed, and relied upon; you could always count on Gene. The real Gene, his wonderful personality and corny sense of humor are still intact!

For all of us, if we live long enough, life will be filled with a series of losses. Some of our losses will be small, others massive. Some of our losses might be positive experiences; other losses, devastating. Perhaps you have experienced the devastating loss of loved ones, friends, jobs, finances, health, independence, opportunities, and physical and mental abilities; the list of possibilities is endless. As we get older, the rate of our losses accelerates with a sort of piling up of many losses linked together. Usually when we have lost something dear to us it brings sadness, and grief; it is something we would like to avoid, but loss is a part of normal life.

Sometimes when we suffer loss it can feel as though God has forgotten us, or He is punishing us, or doesn’t care about us. Maybe we feel He has turned His back on us. We might feel as though God is taking pleasure in causing the pain and the loss that we are experiencing. Worse yet, we can feel as though He does not love us.

When I saw the above picture, I knew that I had to build today’s post around it. Unless you look very closely you may miss the fact that it is really a picture of 2 homeless men, one cradling the other. This is how Gene and I feel, like the sick, dirty, tired, needy beggar man being held by his friend. This has been a rough week for us. But, even during our lowest moments, when we have felt the most desperate, God has been willing to enter into our suffering with us and to wrap His arms around our weakness and our affliction and carry us. This is what Jesus did for all of us when he came to this world. He left the glories of heaven to become like one of us, though He was still God. He was willing to suffer and die for a sin ravaged world in order that we might know the hope of salvation. Jesus did not come to this world unapproachable or as a God unwilling to touch our afflictions. He came willing to suffer for us and He will sit right down in the dirt of our suffering with us and wrap His strong arms around us. He knows what it is to suffer. Jesus was a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Isaiah 53:3

It is quite easy to be consumed by the pain of our losses. Gene and I are not superhuman that we have not felt pain, grief, and sadness in the midst of ALS; we have and we do, and we will, still. But God has a way in suffering. Many of us come to find Christ in a time of loss and suffering; and when we know Him, it is often in times of suffering, loss, and affliction that we find Him to be unusually present. This is our experience; this is what we have found to be true. And if I may speak to you as a dear friend, God often uses the time of suffering to reveal Himself to us even when we are not looking to find Him: “I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me.” Isaiah 65:1 We are all the beggar, homeless man in the picture and God would come and weep over each of us, put His arms around us, and carry us.

The loss that has caused Gene the greatest sadness is his inability to kneel in prayer. One of my dearest thoughts of Gene is his early morning prayer time—in our closet, on his knees, before his Lord. Mentally, he knows that kneeling is a condition of the heart and not the physical act so much, but now that it is lost, he thinks of all the years that he chose not to kneel because of pride and self-sufficiency.

Yes there has been much lost, but there is much still to be found. To you who have experienced the pain of losses and suffering, there is much about suffering that remains a mystery to us; but let us leave you with these words…

But those who suffer He delivers in their suffering; He speaks to them in their affliction. He is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction, to the comfort of your table laden with choice food.

Job 36:15-16

We will be back soon, until then we are...

Being carried,

Gene and Michele