What Cannot Be Lost: How Jesus Holds Us Together When Life Is Falling Apart

by Melissa Zaldivar

But when we try to make our stories of grief and pain and loss make logical sense, we can often rob ourselves by making comparisons and talking ourselves out of the reality of what went down. We cheapen our grief when we try to rationalize it away.

Sometimes, we use “hope” to numb us to the pain that’s happening. We use the future as something we can anchor on in times of trouble or loss. And while that is a good practice—the kingdom of God is coming—it sometimes can make us believe the lie that our faith is a future faith only. That if things feel broken today, they’ll get better tomorrow!

The truth is this: if the gospel—which literally means “good news”—isn’t going to meet us in the pit, it isn’t truly good news. If the doctrine you’re believing isn’t able to meet you where you are, it’s out of focus.

Truth of all: when we have nothing left to offer, we can receive his love the most. When we come with no ribbons or bows or whistles or tricks or good jokes, we can get down to the unfiltered truth that God doesn’t want us to be the best, he just wants us to be his.

The fullness of Scripture is rich and good and profound but when we limit ourselves by only consuming the parts we feel like consuming, we are ultimately selling ourselves short.

We were made to connect in daily, unspectacular life with our people.

“I’ve got to reconcile that You don’t fast-forward me through this.” He doesn’t let us skip to the easy part or jump ahead. We are stuck, for better or worse, with the moment we have right now.

You are not alone in your watching and waiting and canceling plans. You are not alone in your wandering and aimlessness. You are not alone in the guilt you feel over time you wish you had spent differently. You are not alone in the texts piling up and the dishes filling the sink and the spilling of drinks because you just weren’t paying attention. No one talks about it, but we turn into different people when grief settles in, and so I need you to know that the list-making of worst-case scenarios and how you’ll cope isn’t something you are walking through by yourself. You are keeping your phone charged and waiting for bad news and changing your schedule, and you are not alone.

One of the biggest lies that can deceive us in our faith is that we live in one space or another; we are either fine or a mess, grieving or joyful. There’s not a ton of room for feeling a tug of war in our hearts, which is where we most often find ourselves.

Grief is blinding and deafening and paralyzing, all at once and yet, we have to keep stepping forward, which feels very unfair.