Three Sticks — Personal Development for Christians

I had an interesting conversation today about loss. The conversation started as a conversation about opportunities and choosing among different opportunities and how choosing 1 opportunity over another closes some doors as it opens others. This has been a difficult challenge for me as I have discussed in my article Creating Your Life: Part 1 - Making Choices. My primary concern has been with losing the option that the now closed door represents. In the course of our conversation we agreed that life is full of loss. We also agreed that in our culture we are rarely taught that loss is a major part of life. Most children are not taught about loss except when someone close to their family dies.

Loss occurs in life in a lot of ways. For example, you can experience loss in the form of

• loss of life - someone in your life passes away
• loss of opportunity - you chose one option over another that closes off other options
• loss in relationships - when relationships come to their natural end

Of course there are other ways that loss occurs in life such as when individual freedoms are curtailed by an oppressor. Although loss is often experienced in such a way, this article focuses on the loss of life that occurs during everyday life and does not include artificial losses created by others for some unnatural purpose.

The key to dealing with loss is to understand that it is a natural part of life and accept it. A key point of accepting loss is to not become depressed or cynical about life or loss as a part of life.

The Bible offer some guidance in dealing with hardship and loss. For example,

• Hebrews 12:3 states, Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Here the author wants us to remember those who have come before us and the struggles they endured. The purpose of doing so is to help us keep our struggles and sense of loss in perspective.
• Luke 9: 24 - 25 Jesus states, For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, buy whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? Here Jesus wants us to know that if what is most important to us is our life here on earth that we will do everything in our power to protect that life we will be too afraid to take risks or do anything that will endanger your safety, health or comfort. This also applies to loss. If you are so afraid of loss that you are unwilling to take risks that you’ll be paralyzed by making decisions and you will experience the loss you are so afraid of by not taking any action.

Experiencing loss in life is a reality, the choice in how you deal with loss is yours. You can choose to become depressed and cynical or you can choose to maintain your perspective, accept your loss and look forward to new opportunities.

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