The Beauty of Loss

Once again I’m asked to let go of everything,

Like Job writhing in his ashes,

I am surrounded with the loss and the suffering

As all that I thought I knew slips away from my fingertips,

Slowly bleeding into a vapor, a mist,

A shadow of nothingness,

And formlessness and void

I tremble,

I weep,

I wonder, How many times will You ask me to give it all?

How many worlds will be destroyed by the continual movement

of Our dancing?

How many times will We be made new?

And why is this the pattern We have chosen?

Why must one world seem to end for another to begin?

And what can I learn from this time of darkness and suffering and loss?

And I let it go and give it all…

And there when nothing is around me,

I find there’s only You in the ashes of the worlds,

In the center of it all, Our United Heartbeat,

And I realize that’s all I ever needed,

For worlds are only for a time,

But Love always remains

And somehow eternity does not mean that all things go on forever,

So I no longer understand this life that We have chosen,

And when You tell me what it looks like,

I wonder what You mean,

Or if it’s simply greater than I can fathom at this time,

But in a way there’s no such thing as loss,

For all there is is Yahweh, and as We give away all that We’ve known,

We are the only One to whom anything is able to be given,

So that though the form changes,

And the world is ever altered,

We remain the same

And perhaps the greatest beauty of Our loss

Is, in the depths, to find Ourself as the only thing,

All that truly can ever be,

Both in what is and what isn’t,

In suffering and glory,

In death and life and increase,

In sorrow and heartache and joy,

We are,

And now I know

I know that We are all that I need,

That You are all that there is,

Tested in the fire that burned the world to ash

My faith is made secure by the flames,

And now I can see greater things and farther than before

I asked to know only You,

And You obliged,

And I am grateful for this suffering that makes my heart ache,

And the bitterness of the tears is only equaled

By the sweetness of the knowledge that is only, only You,

You, my everything,

You, my worldmaker,

You, my heartache, my destruction,

My resurrection and my peace

Truly, You give and You take away,

But I will choose to bless Your Name again,

For I love You.