Once again I am in the process of moving. And because I didn’t listen when God clearly told me to leave it all behind in New Brunswick, I am packing and moving things I really don’t need. Or, in some cases don’t even want anymore. Heavy things! Some of it is sentimental. Well, a lot of it is sentimental. But I am wondering, is it important? Or in pandemic vocabulary, it it essential to my life? What if I lost it all?
In preparing my prayers for Thanksgiving Sunday, I listened to some news feeds about Fiona and her resulting destruction in Puerto Rico and Port Aux Basques (amoung other places.) I heard a man speak about the sands that had literally shifted around him. Clearly shaken by the events of the previous 24 hours, and trying to control the tremble in his voice, he said he had lost everything. After five seconds or so he continued, but there are those who have lost more than everything.
Losing more than everything.
Is that even possible?
What does that look like?
What does that feel like?
Losing more than everything.
Certainly, it might include losing some of one’s sentimental possessions in a hurricane. It might include loss of life and livelihood.
But I wonder if it is really about the loss of hope on top of losing everything else - the difficulty in finding grounds for believing that something good might happen again given what has just happened. Perhaps this is the more than everything we can lose in times of trial.
So, just what is this more than everything which we are so afraid of losing? Stop. Take as long as you need to contemplate the idea of more than everything. Not losing more than everything. Just, more than everything.
From the most famous Psalm, I hear, my cup runneth over when I ponder the idea of more than everything. And surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And certainly, the way, the truth and the life is more than everything to me. What makes my more than everything so empowering and transformational is that my faith - my trust - my hope is in something I can never lose. Something I don’t ever have to fear losing.