How to Tally

Like dice rolled in Yahtzee, who could tally such loss? What are the odds of getting 'Four of a Kind' ? I can rattle off the litany of children-who-have-died, but how could that ever describe the depth of pain, the length of ache? How do you add up the deaths of newborn daughter, eldest son, stillborn son, adult daughter? It is not something that can be summed up. Only multiplied. This is four squared, as each loss builds upon the previous sorrows, triggering what you thought had been squared. Away.

I can not wrap my heart around it. It is like attempting to cover an awkward, over-sized gift with paper too thin, too narrow. You tape and tape in hopes of having edges overlapping, only to have another rip, another gap exposed.

When I am able to sit still long enough, I discover the dust of truth blowing in under the doorways. I cannot fathom the height or depth or width of such bereavement, yet God tells me His love for me is greater still. Isn't that what Paul wrote to the Ephesians, and what he prayed for? That we "may have power, with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge...." (Eph. 3:18-19)?

Christ would have me perceive the extent of His love, to grasp it, understand it for myself. If He can empower me to catch even a glimpse of such fathomless love, my grief can begin to shrivel like some shrinky-dink in the oven. What I thought multiplied, can actually be divided by the riches of His grace.

If my Creator-God, can hold the oceans in His hand and measure off the heavens with His fingers, if He can pick up the whole earth as though it were a grain of sand, then surely He is able to hold what I consider to be a Grand Canyon of grief. (Isaiah 40:12,15 NLT). Grand is swallowed by Grander-still, like plankton swallowed by a whale.

I may be unable to describe the vastness of my losses, but I can describe my Lord. "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Blessed be His name.