Loss and lockdown

Back in the mid 2000s, when the band Busted were at large and I watched far too much daytime TV, there was an advert on couple of times every day from an Air Freshener company called Oust. It showed a teenager walking into their room and using a competing brand of air freshener, that lingered over all the smells but got rid of none of them. However, when their mum came in spraying Oust, all the “bad smells” disappeared. The tagline read, “Don’t cover up bad odours, Oust them”.

We all have lost something over this last year. For starters, breakfast buffets are now a thing of the past. But some of us will have lost much more. We’ve lost out on quality time with people we love, others will have lost jobs, and many of us will have lost friends and family to Covid. It’s important to remember this loss as we come to lament and soon to celebrate Easter.  

When we’re dealing with loss in all its forms we can often cover up the negative emotions, when what we really want to do is “Oust them”. We want the grief and anger to just disappear entirely and we want to go back to how things were before. When we look to Jesus, we realise that neither of these paths are the right ones to take.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”. He says comforted, not fixed. Comforted, not covered up. Comforted, not back to normal.

There is something powerful in speaking out about the things we have lost, recognising how we are feeling and bringing all of that to the foot of the cross.

We don’t have a God who puts a plaster over our wounds and with a quick “there, there” and a pat on the head, sends us on our way. We have a God who experienced the greatest loss himself. We take our loss to the One who has been there before us, the One who suffered as a human and the One who lost everything himself so that we might live.

We have a God who doesn’t just kiss it better; we have a God who gets down in the dirt alongside us, who lives it with us. By recognising that and being honest with ourselves about how we feel, we start to accept our loss. Instead of covering it up we accept them as part of our story.

BLOG AUTHOR: RUTH ROGERS

Photo by Ian Taylor on Unsplash