loss on Relationships

I was listening to a lecture on friendship to prepare this sermon and the speaker used the movie The Bride of Frankenstein as an illustration. Now, for this to work, you have to put the movie Young...

George Matheson was just entering the bewildering teenage years when doctors informed him he was going blind. Undeterred, he pressed on with his education and graduated from the University of Glasgow ...

We can be a little more resistant to calls of duty, though responsibilities, too, can help us keep going. But if we tend to be superconscientious, we can relax a little…When we do go into social group...

The marriage of Queen Victoria and Albert (otherwise known as Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel — quite a mouthful!) was one for the ages. Their love and devotion to each other was remarkable, ...

One of the greatest needs of all bereaved people is to have access to someone who will take a risk and be involved—someone who is not afraid of intense feelings, but who will encourage their expressio...

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart. May God bless you...

God of Love and Mercy—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: As those beloved by You...You give us the privilege of loving others and praying for them ... as we do today. We pray on behalf of those for whom th...

Before I really talk with Eric and Kate for the first time, I can already make a rough guess of their status and occupations. Eric is athletic, handsome, in a suit with an open collar; Kate is dressed...

Gaining spiritual life is conditional on suffering loss. We cannot measure our lives in terms of "gain"; they must be measured in terms of "loss." Our real capacity lies not in how...

Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose.

Heavenly Father, our Savior told us, "Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for My sake will gain it." These are hard words. We confess that we oft...

Jerry Sittser, who experienced the terrible tragedy of losing a mother, a wife, and a daughter in the same car accident, wrote these poignant words on loss: Loss creates a barren present, as if on...

When you lead people through difficult change, you take them on an emotional roller coaster because you are asking them to relinquish something—a belief, a value, a behavior—that they hold dear. Peopl...

Pastor: We come before our heavenly Father in the name of the One who is King of kings, His Son, Jesus Christ. At His invitation we pray.  People: Your Kingdom come; Your will be done. P...

Live to the point of tears.

I think these difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way and that so many things that one goes around worrying about are of ...

When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pil...

I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels so much like suspense. It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that have become habitual…I keep on through habit fitting an arrow to the ...

’Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

…we talked in a kind of ocean depth of memories where magic fish swam past, as we evoked our parents and Joy’s sisters, all dead now but with us for an hour in that exquisite room where time past and ...

As we feel the pain of our own losses, our grieving hearts open our inner eye to a world in which losses are suffered far beyond our own little world of family, friends, and colleagues. It is the worl...

Gracious God, we are called to be a joyful people, giving thanks for You and Your good gifts. There are times, however, when sin and sorrow grow, pushing joy to the side. We lose sight of Your grace, ...

Change invariably leads to loss, loss to grief, grief to anxiety and, finally, anxiety to hostility. We need therefore, to acknowledge grief. We need to understand and choose to walk with the grieving...

The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

Time, then, is told by love's losses, and by the coming of love, and by love continuing in gratitude for what is lost. It is folded and enfolded and unfolded forever and ever, the love by which th...

We bring before you, O Lord, the troubles and perils of people and nations, the sighing of prisoners and captives, the sorrows of the bereaved, the necessities of strangers, the helplessness of the we...

The best helps to growth in grace are the ill usage, the affronts, and the losses which befall us. We should receive them with all thankfulness, as preferable to all others, were it only on this accou...

"But whatever gain we had We count as loss for the sake of Christ. We consider everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord." For his sake we will...

How shall my heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?

The etymology of certain words can profoundly enrich our understanding and experience of life. Consider the word “consolation.” Its roots lie in the Latin words “con-” meaning “ “to be ” and “solus,...