Things Lost and Things Gained

Last time I wrote about watching our kids experience grief in this move to Haiti our family is preparing for. That has been – and will be – tough.  But I’ve been caught off guard by my own grief as well. 

A few days ago I had to finish up a chore at our old house in preparation for it being rented again … or sold … or whatever God’s plan is.  A section of the outside garage wall had become water damaged and was simply crumbling away.  I had to rip away all the old wood and replace it with new and it took ALL day.  Before I left that evening, though, there was a second, unrelated job to do that I had been putting off.

The pool needed to be drained of about 8 inches of stagnant water.  This was the first summer in seven years that I had not cleaned out that pool and filled it with fresh water.  Even last summer, between renters, I had done pool duty.  It was always an ugly job – ridding that thing of all the decaying leaves and the gallons upon gallons of mucky, stinky brown water.  It always took hours to finish.

But as soon as it was all cleaned out and the garden hose started pumping fresh, clear water into the pool, the kids would put on their swim suits and start splashing around in the puddles forming in the bottom of the pool, slipping and sliding this way and that.  THAT was the pay off.

2012

This year, though, I decided the liner was too old and there was simply no good reason to fill that pool; nobody was going to use it and we couldn’t afford to run the pump or buy the chlorine anyway.  And rather than tearing the liner out completely, which would only result in a perfectly round, enclosed weed garden, I decided to puncture a hole in the liner at the lowest spot and let gravity drain the mosquito nest.

So at the end of the day, I took off my shoes, lowered myself into the pool and waded into the ankle deep muck with a utility knife in hand. 

And I stabbed that pool in the heart.

I went back into the house to wash up, stood at the kitchen sink looking out over the deck at the pool ... and just lost it.  The flood of emotion completely caught me off guard and I cried – harder than I have cried in a very long time. 

The feeling was something akin to taking an old, loyal dog to the veterinarian to be put to sleep.  You’ve told yourself that it has to be done, it’s for the best, there’s no avoiding it … but that moment of finality tears at your heart.

But here’s the honest-to-goodness truth: even if it were possible to go back, I would not.  Recently, I have found myself drawn time and again to Paul's letter to the Philippians.  Chapter 3 is especially resonating with me:  "But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."  (Phil 3:7-11)

I am certainly not putting myself in Paul’s spiritual league, only saying that I find myself more and more wanting nothing – not even good things – to stand in the way of my willingness to follow God’s call on my life and on the life of my family.  Letting go of things can be difficult, especially when the future is impossible to see. 

(And pretty soon we'll be saying goodbye to PEOPLE and not just things:  Grandmas.  Aunts and uncles. Cousins. Best friends.  We're going to need some serious prayer!) 

To use a well-worn cliché: It's not going to be easy, but it will be worth it.  God is faithful and we know that nothing compares to being in the center of His will.  And sometimes that involves moving away from the comfortable and familiar...



P.S.  We leave Florida for Haiti on August 13th, but we are still short in our financial support.  If you have not yet joined our support team, would you consider doing it today?  Just go to onemissionsociety.org to start the process.