Why Do We Suffer Loss?

Loss can be very painful. It can take your will away from you. It can burden you for life. How do you deal with loss? Is it too much to deal with today?

Loss comes in many forms. There is the loss of a loved one. There is loss of property. Some people lose part of themselves. Obviously I cannot catalog all the types of loss that occur in life, but it occurs constantly.

Now before you start thinking that this is just a downer article, rest assured, it it not. I have suffered loss, but I have come out better because of it. I won’t say that it seemed like that would be the case when it happened, but I did come out better. Yes, life does get better.

Perspective And Trust

Call me crazy, but I have found that I look forward to what some might label trials. It can be so hard to live when everything appears to be crashing down around you. I have experienced depression. It is not fun, yet I overcame it. I look back at those days and ponder about how good it was to go through the heartache and despair. I have so much more compassion for others because of it. However, I had to get past my self pity and recriminations.

Stepping back and looking at my life as a path of learning has changed how I look at circumstances and experiences. What seemed so unfair and wrong turns into a life lesson that really turns to gold from the value you place on it. I choose to trust that life, or from my perspective, God, knows what is best for me. With that trust in place, the hardships, the pain, turns into something sweet that only I get to savor.

Who Had It Worse?

One of my ancestors, Johann Grunert, shows me an example of fortitude. I don’t know how well he dealt with the loss he suffered, but he never stopped because of it. Johann married and had two children with Catharina. One of those two children died after four months. Then Catharina died about ten years later. That can’t be easy to endure, but he went on. He remarried, to my ancestor, Anna Bahr. They had twelve children together, yet I found that seven did not make it past childhood. He had a son whose first wife died in childbirth with their first child. So only six of his fourteen children are not known to have died in childhood, and he lost a wife. It was not easy going for the man. Yet he went on.

I am glad he went on. His daughter, Justina, is my fourth great grandmother. She was his thirteenth child. Perseverance paid off for me. I honor his efforts.

When you step back and think a little more about where you are at today, can you see a better future? What are you living for?

What Is Courage?

It is not easy to keep going, if you say it isn’t. I went on a run today, and it hurt at times, but I kept going. It ended up being a better time than I had expected. I improved, yet it hurt. It still does, but I know what the desired result is in my life and I am willing to put up with the momentary hurt for the improved life I want. Courage is often nothing more than to take the next step forward. To part with the pain for the sweet lessons that they provide. To honor the changes that it produces when you choose to take that different perspective.

Let your life change for the better. Take a look at a new idea. I have a training to help with that.