Loss and Hope

I’ve been thinking a lot about loss this week. My uncle died from a heart attack on Monday and the sudden, unexpected loss sent a wave of grief through our whole family. I felt the pain of not only losing him, but also losing the chance to grieve him properly— to share the grief with my other family members in person and feel their comfort as we collectively laid him to rest. It’s a strange time to lose someone you love. Instead, we had a zoom funeral with extended family and all those who loved him. And it turned out to almost be better than a real funeral. It brought together family members from all across the world who wouldn’t have made it to an in-person funeral. The open-mic format allowed everyone to share their own favorite memories of him and I learned so much more about him. He never married or had children of his own. But, like Peter Pan, he collected so many lost boys (and girls) and made a safe world for them where they felt loved. He caught a teen picking his cherries from a tree in his yard and gave him a ladder and hired him to do work and get paid. He babysat for a single mother so she could go to work. He let lost souls live at his house. He took in a boy whose mother just died and encouraged him to live a better life. Story after story kept coming from so many people he touched and I felt my heart lift. Instead of grief, I felt joy. Instead of loss, I felt hope. I find it comforting that this is Easter weekend. Whether it’s a loss of a loved one, the loss of a normal life right now, or the loss of the Savior of the World in that dark tomb, I know this: our losses don’t have to last forever. Through Jesus Christ we can have HOPE. He rose again and I believe that He will help each one of us do the same every single time we need picking up. Nothing brings me as much peace as reaching out for His hand and finding Him always there. HOPE. Happy Easter.