Thank You for Sharing

Loss, Gratitude, and the God Who Shares

This year I was at a basketball game with one of my oldest friends. His daughter was playing, and his three-year-old son was holding court on the sidelines. I remember when my son was that age. He is much older now, and our relationship is much different, but when he was that age every interaction loomed with the possibility of us learning something from one another. He was full of questions I knew the answer to, and I had answers that he was inclined to believe me rather than doubt . My friend’s son sat between my friend and me, and he and I took turns telling stories and sharing facts that we thought the other might appreciate. Then he asked, “What’s that?” pointing to the watch on my wrist.

I love watches and explaining things; this moment was rich with possibilities. I took it off my wrist and began to explain to him what a watch was. Explaining the concept of time to toddlers is unusually challenging, and while I’m sure I failed to convey the idea of time, the watch however was something he could hold. I have a modest watch collection; most of them have more sentimental than financial value. I still have my first watch, which my mother gave me when I was in third grade. I pointed out the features of the watch.I watched him watch the second hand sweep across the watch face; we counted the indicators for each of the hours of the day together.

And of course he tried it on. My watch, of course, was not the right size, but he enjoyed wearing it and looking at it and talking about it. The game we were watching went on and eventually was over. A difficult conversation was about to happen now. Somehow I had to get my watch back. I told my friend’s son that I was getting ready to leave and that I was going to put my watch back on. Lifting up his arm, with the watch sinking down past his elbow, he asked,

“Isn’t this mine now?”

I laughed and explained that it wasn’t, but that we had shared the watch together. He slipped his arm out of the watch and told me,

“Thank you for sharing.”

I thought I taught him something that day. I am starting to gather what he shared with me.

Loss, as a word for the experience of bereavement, is an interesting word. It is interesting because it so perfectly captures what the experience of grief feels like. It names the vast sense of emptiness that now occupies the space where something so meaningful once was. It perfectly captures the feeling, but perhaps it imperfectly captures the reality of what that experience actually is.

All things come of Thee, O Lord…

That familiar prayer, drawn from Scripture (1 Chronicles 29:14), suggests that what we possess is never ultimately ours. Ultimately everything that we enjoy in life comes from God. He shares great and wonderful gifts with his children for a time and while he never takes his presence from us we don’t get to keep the gifts forever. Loss is what we experience when God gathers back what he shared with us.

The experience of loss is not only subtraction but reorientation. Gymnasts sometimes are afflicted by a condition they call the bends. It is a loss of orientation. The bends are dangerous for gymnasts; they can be easily and dangerously injured if they lose the ability to control their bodies in space. Grief gives you the bends. It challenges your orientation. For those who are grieving—whether the loss of a person, a relationship, a season of life, or a sense of certainty—this reorientation can be deeply unsettling.It tempts you to become angry with God for taking what was yours, but the truth is that God was sharing what was his with us.

And yet down there underneath it all, underneath the fear and the loneliness and the heartbreak and the empty spaces some part of grief is gratitude somewhere there is the phrase my teacher taught me that day. When he reluctantly returned something that never truly belonged to him he gave me a word of wisdom I can keep something to tell God that will remind me even though I cannot keep His precious gifts I am richly blessed for having had them.

Dear God,

Thank you for sharing