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Love, Loss, and What Remains. Sometimes, for reasons I don\u2019t always understand, life doesn\u2019t just disappoint\u2014it crashes. Not the hardship we expect or prepare for, but the kind that divides everything into before and after. A moment arrives\u2014a phone call, a diagnosis, a goodbye you didn\u2019t know was final\u2014and life as you knew it vanishes.<\/p>\n
What follows is not noise but silence. A black silence. Thought escapes us. The mind, so capable of solving problems and navigating difficulty, simply stops. It has been struck too hard, too suddenly, too completely. There is no immediate path forward, no reason to rise\u2014only the weight of what cannot be undone.<\/p>\n
The source of this kind of devastation is almost always love.<\/p>\n
We can make sense of physical pain. We can measure it, treat it, and endure it. But when something touches the heart\u2014when love is broken, removed, or lost\u2014the damage is different. Love creates attachment, identity, and meaning. When it is taken away, it is not merely a loss; it is disorientation. The mind searches for resolution, but none is to be found.<\/p>\n
I would like to say that we heal over time. Sometimes we do. But sometimes we don\u2019t heal completely; we learn to live with what remains. The greater the love, the greater the pain. Not feeling that pain would mean something far worse: that we had never loved deeply.<\/p>\n
The privilege of loving carries the possibility of immense pain.<\/p>\n
1 Peter 4:8, \u201c<\/strong>Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.\u201d<\/p>\n I live with that pain. Fifteen years later, it still brings me to tears.<\/p>\n I never want to become the person who forgets\u2014who buries it so deeply that the heart grows numb to its presence. That experience shaped who I am. At one point in my life, it was a driving light. It changed me and made me better.<\/p>\n Yes, this is mine to carry. It is something I never want to lose. Anything this powerful is meant to be remembered. I want that feeling to keep shaping me, not fade into something distant and harmless. When I feel its weight, I understand others’ pain in a way I never could before. What once seemed like it would destroy me has become a source of connection to the rest of humanity. It remains one of the darkest moments of my life. But I survived\u2014and I continue to live.<\/p>\n If love has the power to break us, it also reveals something deeper about how we were made.<\/p>\n God created us to love and be loved. This is not a minor part of who we are\u2014it is central to our design. It is the essence of Christ\u2019s teaching. Love binds us together, gives meaning to our lives, and drives us toward one another. When directed rightly, it changes lives for the better. When withheld or broken, it leaves damage in its wake.<\/p>\n Psalm 147:3, <\/strong>\u201cHe heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.\u201d<\/p>\n But that damage does not define our worth.<\/p>\n Love lost has a way of making us feel unworthy of love. That is the lie it tells. If we believe it, it pulls us deeper into despair. But the truth stands in direct opposition to that lie: God\u2019s love is not conditional. It is not withdrawn, and it does not fail as human love sometimes does.<\/p>\nLOSS<\/h2>\n