Watching my wife at work on a labour of love — the curating of an
album for our Nathanael Marcus — in the midst of a special day for deceased
infants (from my unique viewpoint) — and I learn something new, again.
Loves sows... yet it
reaps in loss.
She goes out of her
way, does love, and creates something so remarkable as to give itself wholly
for another, only to eventually lose that other. Ultimately, love loses. But we
cannot live without love, given that God is love, and, when we are true to
ourselves, we cannot help acknowledge the obviousness of God.
Love is a debtor who
plays a serious game. There is no insignificant investment of emotion, spirit,
fortitude, faithfulness, grace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and
servant-heartedness in love. Love gives all without regret, without compromise,
without thought for loss. But love must lose.
That’s not to say
that to love is to lose in the way of life. Love directs our paths and it’s the
very reason we have any hope at all, any strength of faith, and any meaning for
life.
But love must lose.
It must suffer loss, for to love is to gain, but to gain means we will
eventually suffer the worst indignity — to see the love that was built up
evaporate before our eyes!
But, still, we cannot live life and enjoy it the best we can without
love.
***
As I experienced my darling select
and place those pictorial records of our son’s birth — a birth that did not
work out well, for which there is no denying, which is an ugly truth to accept,
but that which must be accepted, for there is no logic in not accepting what
cannot be changed (sorry for the long sentence) — I heard God’s silent
rectitude as if in the voice of the Old Testament book, Ecclesiastes.
There is refreshment in a harrowing
truth that somehow we cannot change that which is horrendous to know: our love
has lost. When we understand that the Lord
gives, just as the Lord takes
away, blessed are we — as Job says — when we can say, “Blessed be the Name of
the Lord!”
The Lord
is the giver of every perfect gift, and love is the perfection in the gift.
When God gave us Nathanael, and, then
before we received him, God took him away, we received a love that conquers its
own tragic loss. We have the very real possession of his memory until we meet
him alive in heaven.
© 2015 S. J. Wickham.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.