This summer has felt much more like winter and in the past few days, I have become ravenous for some sign of spring.\u00a0 Since early May, it seems like loss has closed in around me like a thick blanket of snow and ice.\u00a0 First, our friends lost a baby in a tragic turn of events.\u00a0 Six weeks later, a friend lost a 12-year battle with brain cancer followed by another dear friend who was called home after enduring 5 years of a blood disease. \u00a0To top it all off, just a couple weeks ago we had to put our 14 year old family dog down after watching her health decline rapidly over the last several months. As if all that weren\u2019t enough, some emotional losses have been at the forefront of this season as well.\u00a0 In one week I will send my youngest child off to kindergarten and I will mourn a different kind of loss.\u00a0 Last, but not least, these warm summer days have brought the end to some friendships that I believed were much stronger than actuality revealed.<\/p>\n
In all of this, I have wrestled with my own sadness, and watched those around me reeling with grief.\u00a0 As I attended our friend\u2019s visitation, what could I possibly say to his widow and three daughters?\u00a0 Tempted to ask if they needed anything, I knew in my heart the question was inadequate and empty.\u00a0 Of course they need something.\u00a0 They need their father and husband.\u00a0 They need to see him, hold him and finish life with him.\u00a0 The intensity of their grief seemed immeasurable.\u00a0 But in that very instant, something else immeasurable occurred to me.\u00a0 It struck me that perhaps the depth of their sorrow is only matched by the depth of God\u2019s love and comfort.<\/p>\n
From there, the revelations came fast and furious and right in the midst of them came the truth of Newton\u2019s third law.\u00a0 \u201cFor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.\u201d What Newton found to be true in the physical realm seems to be just as true in the spiritual one.\u00a0 For every human emotion we experience, God has an equal and opposite reaction.\u00a0 When we sin, the expanse of our regret and remorse is powerfully countered by the great expanse of God\u2019s forgiveness.\u00a0 In the times that we are desperate to hear God\u2019s voice above a raging storm, He is just as desperate to reach us in our pain and anguish.\u00a0 Days that we find ourselves in rebellion, running fast and furious away from His arms, I believe God is pursuing us just as furiously and feverishly.\u00a0 And in our darkest moments, when we feel most alone and lost, God is most anxious to reveal His presence and comfort.\u00a0 An equal and opposite reaction.\u00a0 Our darkness reveals His shining moments.\u00a0 Our caverns and valleys give way to His appearance on the mountain pulling us out of the mire.<\/p>\n
The Bible is full of stories in which God reacts to dismay, failure, and desperation with equal amounts of peace, forgiveness and hope.\u00a0 When Noah received a flood, God sent a rainbow and a promise.\u00a0 When Esther reached for courage, God responded with protection and provision.\u00a0 And perhaps, most profoundly, when the disciples grappled with the death and ascension of Christ and an unknown future, God sent the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n
During this season of loss in my own life, I\u2019m not sure what God\u2019s reaction will be.\u00a0 But in any case, I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u00a0 If the depths of my sorrow are any indication, then I can trust that his equal and opposite reaction will be spectacular and glorious.\u00a0 I am convinced that in the presence of the deaths I\u2019ve experienced, God\u2019s display of life will be nothing short of miraculous.\u00a0 I love that I have a God who exercises love and mercy at every turn.\u00a0 A God who responds to our abundant desperation with an abundance of grace.\u00a0 A God who takes Newton\u2019s genius to a whole new magnificent level.<\/p>\n