Another Week Has Come and Gone

It’s hard to believe how fast time goes by. Another week has come and gone. It was much like any other week, filled with good things, and not so good things.

I just finished watching Southeast Christian Church tv. It was about the story of Ruth and Naomi from The Story. It began with Naomi and the loss she suffered, which was a lot. She lost her home, and had to leave the beloved promise land. Once she and her family arrived in the foreign land of Moab, her husband died. She also lost her sons, after they married. This woman understood the story of loss.

This week there was loss all around me. A couple telling their children they were divorcing. A woman who tried to take her life. Another woman whose ex-husband died after an illness, leaving her children fatherless. A friend who is dealing with the declining health of her husband. A mother who recently lost a son who would have been attending his senior prom. A woman who is hurting from many things and has no one to talk to or help her through. And the list goes on.

Kyle Idleman, the teaching pastor at Southeast Christian Church said several times during the sermon to not let our life stories be about loss, but instead about redemption. Because the story, our stories, aren’t over.

I made a mental journey again this weekend to the losses I have suffered. Not a fun trip, but I did so with a different purpose, a good purpose. And Kyle’s sermon about Naomi and Ruth served to remind me that the stories of loss in our lives are real, and they will continue as long as we are on this earth, and they will come to us all at some point, but they don’t have to end there. Redemption is real and ever-present.