Losing someone we love is always painful regardless of how the loss occurs.  Sometimes relationships lose their intimacy due to distance; one person moves too far away for regular visits.  Sometimes a job change causes you to lose regular contact with people you care about.  Sometimes the nature of a relationship changes, such as when one or both parts of a couple decide it’s time to break up.  Sometimes death ends earthly relationships with those we love.  All of these relationship losses are difficult.  After half a century of life and various types of loss, I recently experienced a loss that’s greater than death.  I don’t mean “greater” in the sense of the value of the relationship, but rather in the sense of method of loss.  Let me try to explain.

When distance comes between two people in a relationship, the friendship usually remains to some degree, just with less frequent and less personal interaction.  Old friends still reconnect either by phone, social media, or even occasionally in person.  They enjoy remembering shared experiences and catching up on current life conditions.  The same is true of relationships that lose regular contact due to a job change or school transfer.  The regularity and methods of connecting may change, but the friendships remain.

The nature of relationships sometimes change, and this, too, is painful.  If one or both members decide a romantic relationship needs to end, it’s heartbreaking.  Often expectations and dreams are destroyed when a couple breaks up, and for a season there is much pain and many tears.  Slowly but surely, though–at least in my personal experience–these broken relationships heal to differing degrees of, at least, mutual acknowledgment.  While they don’t look or feel the same as before, there is still a recognition of the value of each person and the value of the relationship itself in its season.

Then there’s the loss of earthly relationships to death.  Death stinks.  Death rips apart the soul from the body, and those left behind must find healthy ways to continue living.  For those who die in Christ, the relationships will continue into eternity, but life on earth in the interim is never the same as before.

As hard as all these relationship losses are, I recently encountered for the first time a type of loss that’s more difficult and perplexing than any of these.  I wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience.  I chose to take a chance on loving a stranger as well as I know how to love–investing time, energy, money, forgiveness, familial welcome, trust–only to have this person choose to suddenly and completely disappear from my life.  One of my favorite songwriters has part of a song lyric which describes the experience perfectly:  “Without one warning you removed yourself from my life . . .”  That’s it in a nutshell; a purposeful, shocking, unexplained, complete removal of relationship and rejection of love.  What was left behind were questions such as “What just happened?” and “Why?” and “What did I do wrong?” and “How did I misjudge this person so badly?” and “What am I supposed to learn from this?”

It’s the last question about which I’m finally beginning to gain insight.  As with most hard life lessons, if I’ll just let the Lord have His way, this one could be a long-term game changer.  What I’m learning is that people will mistreat and reject us, but we must love them anyway.  During this Lenten season, I’ve been reminded of the incredible love of God for me, an unworthy sinner, expressed through the sacrificial gift of Jesus Christ.  The unconditional love of God so far exceeds my ability to love that there’s no comparison.  Yet, millions of people whom God loves choose to reject Him and do all that they can to remove Him from their lives.  How that must grieve the heart of Almighty God!  And yet He continues to love.  So, too, must we.

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.  Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.”               Luke 6:22-23

I’ve also been convicted of the fact that there are surely people in my life who feel rejected and unloved by my lack of attention to them as individuals.  God, forgive me!  Help me instead to be purposeful in loving all whose paths cross with my own.

“Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”  Romans 15:7

Ultimately, all loss and rejection should remind us of the One whose love we can never lose and who promises to never EVER let us go.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 8:38-39

As Jesus died on the cross, He experienced rejection far greater than anything you and I can even imagine as He took the sins of all generations upon Himself.  He willingly suffered loss because of His great love for us.  The Holy Spirit of Christ dwells within all who have put their trust in Him.  God, help us allow You full access to our hearts.  Teach and empower us to love fully, completely, and unconditionally as Jesus does.