Article on Loss at TGC

The Gospel Coalition has published an article I wrote titled "Learning to Live with Loss." Here's how it begins:

“Danny is going to die.”

My cousins said this as we sat at my grandmother’s table. Danny, my 10-year-old brother, was also sitting at the table. Feeling a strong urgency to defend him, I countered, with all the persuasive argumentation of an 8-year-old, “No, he’s not!”

Danny had a brain tumor. Once he was an energetic boy who enjoyed building Legos, playing tag, and creating skits with our older sister. Now his skin was pulled taut against his bones, his body slowly wasting away.

I suspect my cousins were merely repeating what they’d heard their parents say. And I doubt they realized how their words affected me and my brother. As it turned out, my convictions concerning my brother’s outlook were not enough to keep the cancer at bay. My aunts and uncles were right. My brother did not live out the year.

Death affects us in powerful ways. Even for believers who live with the hope of resurrection life and of being reunited with Christian loved ones, death tests us as it alters our experience in this world, forcing us to continue living without someone we love, to keep living despite loss.

Read the rest at the Gospel Coalition's website.