Lost

 

 Have you ever lost something? I'm not talking about misplacing your car keys, but losing something for good. Like, it's not coming back, ever. It can be disheartening, disappointing, or downright depressing! But sometimes I think it's a good idea to step outside of the situation a little and look at it from a different perspective.

 Many, many years ago, when my kids were little, I had a Winnie the Pooh coat. It was my favorite winter coat. In fact, it was my only winter coat. I had a closet that was on the small side, so every spring I would pack up my sweaters and winter coat and other winter clothes and break out the summer wear. Then, in the fall, I would reverse the process. One year, the fall of 2004 to be exact, I went to get out my winter clothes and my Winnie the Pooh coat wasn't there! I searched all around where the bin had been in storage. I checked other bins with the kids' clothes in different sizes. I went through every closet in the house, checked under every bed. The coat was gone. I was disappointed, but I moved on and bought a new winter coat, because, well, winter!

 Fast forward to the following spring and I'm in Liberia, West Africa on my first mission trip. As a part of my job on the trip, I got the opportunity to visit with the families of teachers from the schools we supported. I toured their homes, met their children, and got to see a little of how they live. I was rather uncomfortable, awkward even, in my relations with people, but I took as many pictures as I could. Later, when I got home, I worked on putting together "Day in the Life" picture stories for the organization's newsletters. As I was up working on this in the middle of the night one night, my jaw hit the floor. I'm looking at this picture of one of the homes I visited and I see their "closet." 

 In it is... you're not going to believe it... my Winnie the Pooh coat! It was then that I remembered putting together a clothing donation that went over on a container to Liberia the year before. I must have included my winter coat, thinking I was done with it, or someone else needed it more, or something! How incredible that God would have me go literally across the globe and in one of the few homes I visited inside and took pictures of it would be there. Yes, I would never have my coat back, but that was ok because now at least the mystery was solved and I knew it had gone onto a better place.

 COVID was a hard time for everyone. We all have stories of isolation and loss. Many people lost their jobs and businesses, and I hardly feel like I qualify to join their ranks, but in many ways I did. Prior to the shut down, I was a Christian Yoga instructor. In fact, several of my friends and I that had taught together for years were working on putting together a wellness center that would have yoga and other wellness classes as well as counselling, nutrition coaching and more. We were at an appointment considering signing a 5-year lease the Friday before the shut down when God steered us in a new direction. Instead, we began looking at buildings to purchase, but these doors continued closing as well. All this time, though, we kept up our skills and attempted to continue growing our customer base by maintaining online yoga classes. 

 Last week, something prompted me to look at my backup drive of those videos, and to my horror, it was empty. Over 100 class videos representing months of work of work from six people, completely gone. Because of the degenerative nature of my EDS, I can no longer do many of the things I did in these videos, and I can never recreate them. This piece of my history is lost forever, and sadly, I've lost others' videos as well. I was devastated. In the midst of this realization, my husband was asking me a couple of questions about the stage he was at in his job search. For him, the questions felt urgent and the need compelling. I just didn't have the bandwidth for it though, and I'm afraid I was less than helpful. At first, I was so irritated with him! Couldn't he see that I was suffering? I was distraught at the loss of this very important piece of my past. Didn't he see the gravity of my situation? 

 

Images from his office early on in my husband's career and then shutting down his office during COVID

But wait, he's lost something too. This morning, God reminded me of the last two verses in the book of Jonah:

But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left--and also many animals?"  [Jonah 4:10-11 NIV]  

 I care so much about these videos that I worked 4 months on, but what about my husband's career that he worked 28 years on? If you've ever met my husband, you've likely come away knowing what a diligent, hard-working, reliable, go-to person he is. Since the spring of 1997, he has been pouring his heart into creating the best products possible at Microsoft. This job has enabled him to travel the world as well as provide well for his family. And one morning a couple of weeks ago, it all suddenly ended. He's been such a trooper moving forward, putting one foot in front of the other, and doing the next thing, but it's hard and he often feels alone in it. He reached out to me in a moment of that and rather than empathizing and being there for him, I was too wrapped up in my own hurt. Today I regret that. Today, I wish I had set aside the shock I was feeling over the past and engaged in an important part of my present. Today, I cannot change yesterday, but I can learn from it.

Saying, "Goodbye," as he ships his equipment back to Microsoft

Here's the Thing: I'm not superstitious, but I have certainly experienced the reality that bad things often happen in groupings. People never seem to be hit with just one bad thing at a time. I wonder if the enemy does this to separate us from each other and distract us with our own pain. My loss was real, and my disappointment valid, even though it was not on the same scale as my husband's. That said, I think we are called to be there for each other, even when things aren't going so well for us either. In fact, being there for someone else can often help bring perspective and balm to our own pain.