Guest post by Kelly Balarie

I hung up the phone.

What happens when it is over? When the doors of life shut and beyond them, you can’t see. When a soul travels to a new destiny, a new place, outside the grasp of control-inclined hands? What happens then?

Even more, what happens when you can’t see someone’s way? When you don’t have it all figured, postured, and planned out? When a life moves beyond your conception, your will, and your ability to fix? When you don’t know what to do?

How do you breathe? Let go? Relinquish what really was never yours to begin with?

Loss.

It’s hard. Years go by, and absent of a person, you still long for them. It reminds your soul of all you’re capable of losing—again, all over again, today. The pain beats loudly from your chest.

You think:
Will my kids be okay? What if I can’t rescue them? Keep them from harmful people?
And, will my husband leave me too? What if I am not enough?
God, when all is said and done—will you really want me?
Might you turn your back on me?

Life, often, is lived constantly fearing loss, isn’t it? As if the veil between safety and security is weak. As it if is not wide enough, strong enough, or durable enough for us to squeeze through.

We question it. We won’t make it.

These were the thoughts running through my head as I got off the phone with a friend; she lost her child. I lost myself in an avalanche of tears as we talked.

Reality sunk in: What we have can disappear in the blink of an eye. What we hold is what has been lent to us on earth. What we have been given is really just as easily gone as it is here.

How tightly do I grip things?

Tightly, I know. What I can’t hold, I grip—hard. For I deeply fear my “best life now” will be ripped up, like a beautiful Oriental rug, right out from under my feet. I’ll fall. I’ll cry a river of collected tears. A convergence of all my hurts, pains and losses—they’ll paint my face with old and new discouragement, doubt and rejection.

Impending loss. How do we approach it?

I wonder what would happen if, rather than grabbing tightly onto the best of what we have, we instead, grip, lightly, onto the best of who God is? Might we see things a little clearer? Might we remind our weary heart there is a Deliverer beyond death, beyond destroyed dreams and beyond devastating news? Might we feel more at ease? Might we muster new hope? Hope to see more…

Perhaps loss is not simply loss, but could be gain. Gain of a new perspective. A new path. A new journey. A new vision. A new truth. A new hope. A new prayer. A new faith. A new grace. A new mercy. A new kingdom, even.

A new door to something more. A seat in the arms of a Savior, One who leans in to save, hold, protect, and keep us forever and ever more…

Author and speaker Kelly Balarie didn’t always fight fear—for a large part of her life, she was controlled by it. Now, by God’s grace, she is both a Cheerleader of Faith and a Fighter of Fear; she leans on the power of God, rests on the shoulder of Christ, and discovers how to glow in the dark places of life. In her book, Fear Fighting: Awakening Courage to Overcome Your Fears, Kelly charts a new course. Join Kelly on the journey to go and grow with Christ’s bravery, the Spirit’s counsel, and God’s unending love that squelches fear. Get all Kelly’s blog posts by email or visit her on her blog, Purposeful Faith.