dealing with an unexpected loss

Life has been very tough with me these past few days because of unavoidable circumstances that surrounded its structure . But as a contemplative monk who truly surrenders his life to God and rely all matters of concerns to God, I try not to get affected emotionally. So today, I felt a sudden surge of urge to write and ponder something about dealing with an unexpected loss....

This thought made me reflect deeper on the experience of Mary and Joseph being afraid to lose Jesus. This is something we all go through when we are in love.

People experience love in parent-child relationship, husband-wife realtionship, girlfriend-boyfriend relationship, gay men and gay women relationship, and in platonic, filial, and fraternal friendships between men to men, men to women, and women to women.

But all of us , at a certain point, become afraid of losing a beloved. We get scared of a separation. We get distressed of a failure from a plan, from a loss of a job, from a loss of a relationship.

We are anxious that we will not always be together as uch as we would like to.

But, dear friends and dearly beloved brothers and sisters, the pain of losing a dearly beloved, the pain of being separated from a loved one, and even the pain of an unexpected failure, or the pain of losing a job, of a sudden change in plans causing one's person to lose his/her job making him/her feel distressed , disappointed and discouraged, are all based on a wrong obsession.

This is the obsession of trying to control everything. We would like to be in control of everything. We want to know everything that is happening. We plan everything, and in so doing, we would not like anything and everything unexpected to happen.

Mary and Joseph lost Jesus unexpectedly for a while. Like the Holy couple, we do not like unexpected things. We want things planned out and have these things get carried out according to our plan.

But life is not that way. Life does not run that way. Life doest not treat us that way.

When we look at our life, we see and realize that the more we plan, the more frustrated we become at some point along the way.

And because it is our will, it is not our plan that will make us happy in the end. Because over and above, it is God's plan that will make us happy in the end.

Let us therefore examine our worries and anxieties now.

Did something happen along the way that ruined our structured plans? Let us ask ourselves then, are they based on our obsession to be in control of every inch and everything that we planned?

We are not in control. God is.

And if we would only accept that God is in total control of everything here on earth, and if we would only accept and surrender to God's way of running things on earth, then we would be happy again.

Some people say, "what we own , we owe."

There is nothing we own, that we do not owe to God.

All that we own, is actually owned by God. And we do not possess, we cannot control of everything.

God is in control.

So, let us submit everything to God.

Let us allow Him to control our friendships, our loves, our relationships, our plans, our jobs.

We are afraid of losing a loved one. We are afraid of losing our jobs, We are afraid of losing our friendships. We are afraid of separation.

Let us therefore ask God to be in control of everything in our life.

Let us ask God, "God, be in control, even if I am afraid." "God, take possession of everything in my life, my loves, my friendships, my job." " God, take possession, be in control, because when You are in control, I have nothing to fear. Amen."