As a child, sitting between my parents in church, I often sang the old gospel song, "Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your many blessings, see what God has done...."
I have found it equally crucial to estimate our losses to the pirates of life. To name them aloud or write them down. To mourn them, one by one.
Kill Mosquitoes
We should not be ashamed to grieve for what we have lost, as deeply and for as long as necessary. But then (here's the important part) we must let the good things we have lost slip from our hands with a prayer of thanks, and our blessing. Fly away. Fly away.
Why? We must do so in order to open our hands to what comes next.
When my husband fell ill and was diagnosed with West Nile neurological disease in summer of 2007, the minute boat of our lives flipped upside down. Vandals take all forms--we felt as though our life had been ravaged by body pirates.
After a hospital stay of six months, he returned home, walking with a walker, and unable to return to work. A single mosquito bite had ushered us into the world of disability.
At the start of our journey down West Nile, my husband and I made the option to move forward--without becoming angry or bitter. The option to leave behind our old life, to not blame God for the things the pirates stole.
It wasn't easy--we had to re-make the option daily. We became intentional about it. Early in our journey we resolved that no matter how puzzling or painful, we Would find, somewhere near the end of the Nile, more treasure remaining in our minute boat than the scoundrels of the West Nile stole. Something to grow on.
Acknowledging that difficulty can bring growth, however, doesn't mean ignoring our losses. But our faith reminded us that all the losses coarse to humanity can serve a higher purpose, if we let them.
Three months after the pirates of West Nile attacked our minute boat, I read something that helped me process our losses. I read that when a historic pirate ship approached a vessel while flying a red flag it meant the villains were ready not only to rob, but to kill.
If they flew a black flag though, it meant something different. If their victims willingly surrendered their treasure, the attackers would leave one of those treasures intact--their own lives.
Beneath the window in my hostel room, where I lived while my husband's stay in a rehab, sat a play structure in the shape of a ship. A pirate ship, I joked. I asked God why he'd allowed our pirates to park it right there, where I had to look at it daily. Interestingly, the ship flew a Black flag.
Now, I can't help but think God planted it there. A reminder, if you wish, of what would be indispensable for us to do in order to survive the days ahead--willingly let go of our former life, in order to gain a new one.
And we have found it. Though my husband still battles the complications of his disease, and life is far more difficult than ever before, we have been granted entirely new opportunities we never could have found had we clung to the dear old familiar. Letting go of our losses has freed our hands to grab onto something else--the hands of others who need a lift. Doing so has made our own journey less wearying--even joyful.
One of Christ's apostles, Paul, knew the point of letting go. His life too, had been turned topsy turvy. He commented in one of his letters, "But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" Philippians 3:13, 14 Niv.
Lig. Let it go. We did. We haven't been sorry. We feel in good company.
West Nile Neurological Disease - Part 9 - More on Letting Go
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