When Life Tumbles In: Finding Faith in the Face of Loss

Oliver Burkeman, in his insightful work 4000 Weeks, says that the average person living today lives around 4000 weeks.

Using his measurement, I am at around 3500.

In my 60s, I moved closer to the end of life and started feeling my mortality.

I have performed many more funerals. I have good friends in the final stages of life.

I once attended the funerals of friends of my parents. Now it is the funeral of my friends.

What do you do with loss?

John Henry Gossip faced it.

Gossip was a preacher who liked to think. Before the 20th century dawned, he was born in Glasgow, Scotland.

Growing up, he discovered many interests. He became a preacher and a teacher of ethics at Glasgow University.

Then, he came to a crossroads, an event that shook him at his roots.

His wife died.

Her death shattered his life, leaving him heartbroken and bereft.

He did what seemed impossible. He preached his wife’s funeral on Saturday and preached the following Sunday.

Worn and spent, he decided to preach a sermon in which he wrestled with the events of his loss. He spoke on When Life Tumbles In, What Then?

He poured out his heart, describing the darkness of his soul. He refused refuge in shallow platitudes such as “just have faith, and it will get better.”

What is the answer to the question, “when life tumbles in, then what?”

“You people in the sunshine may believe the faith, but we in the shadow must believe it. We have nothing else.”

What else can you do? You either cling to the eternal or despair in the ashes.

Paul said that when life smashes into the brick wall of reality, you come face to face with what is true. Maxims don’t work, and tropes fall short.

“It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself.” (2 Corinthians 4:13–14, NIV)

Faith amid life’s problems is not a curtain to hide behind but a shield to take into the fray.

As I write this, I prepare to preach at another funeral. And yet, it is not I who preach it but the faith in God’s grace that answers the difficult question Gossip posed.

Where do you stand when life drives you to your knees?