Losing our Losses?

At the beginning of the human story, we lost Paradise. Ever since then, we’ve been trying to get it back. At some point, God also shortened human lifespans from hundreds of years to the current range. We’ve been trying to live longer ever since then too.

It makes sense in a world that turned away from God that he would shorten lifespans of humans. Imagine how much power a wicked person could accrue if he or she lived for hundreds of years! And without death as an ever-present shadow, how often would most of us think about God?

In our short lives, we deal with many losses. Some are trivial, like earrings and sunglasses. Some are painful, like losing jobs and pets. Some are devastating, like losing loved ones.

George MacDonald, a Victorian poet, is best known today for his fantasy (The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, and Lilith). He had a profound impact on C.S. Lewis. Though he’s not well known now, he was famous in his day as a poet and novelist (he was even considered for Poet Laureate). MacDonald understood loss. He suffered during his life from poverty, poor health, and the death of four of his children.

He wrote this poem, “The Girl That Lost Things. ” It has too much Victorian sentimentality to be great poetry, but it gets across an important point. It starts as lighthearted and trivial and takes a much more serious turn. It’s really about the restoration of all our losses.

There was a girl that lost things—

Nor only from her hand;

She lost, indeed—why, most things,

As if they had been sand!

She said, "But I must use them,

And can't look after all!

Indeed I did not lose them,

I only let them fall!"

That's how she lost her thimble,

It fell upon the floor:

Her eyes were very nimble

But she never saw it more.

And then she lost her dolly,

Her very doll of all!

That loss was far from jolly,

But worse things did befall.

She lost a ring of pearls

With a ruby in them set;

But the dearest girl of girls

Cried only, did not fret.

And then she lost her robin;

Ah, that was sorrow dire!

He hopped along, and—bob in—

Hopped bob into the fire!

And once she lost a kiss

As she came down the stair;

But that she did not miss,

For sure it was somewhere!

Just then she lost her heart too,

But did so well without it

She took that in good part too,

And said—not much about it.

But when she lost her health

She did feel rather poor,

Till in came loads of wealth

By quite another door!

And soon she lost a dimple

That was upon her cheek,

But that was very simple—

She was so thin and weak!

And then she lost her mother,

And thought that she was dead;

Sure there was not another

On whom to lay her head!

And then she lost her self—

But that she threw away;

And God upon his shelf

It carefully did lay.

And then she lost her sight,

And lost all hope to find it;

But a fountain-well of light

Came flashing up behind it.

At last she lost the world:

In a black and stormy wind

Away from her it whirled—

But the loss how could she mind?

For with it she lost her losses,

Her aching and her weeping,

Her pains and griefs and crosses,

And all things not worth keeping;

It left her with the lost things

Her heart had still been craving;

'Mong them she found—why, most things,

And all things worth the saving.

She found her precious mother,

Who not the least had died;

And then she found that other

Whose heart had hers inside.

And next she found the kiss

She lost upon the stair;

'Twas sweeter far, I guess,

For ripening in that air.

She found her self, all mended,

New-drest, and strong, and white;

She found her health, new-blended

With a radiant delight.

She found her little robin:

He made his wings go flap,

Came fluttering, and went bob in,

Went bob into her lap.

So, girls that cannot keep things,

Be patient till to-morrow;

And mind you don't beweep things

That are not worth such sorrow;

For the Father great of fathers,

Of mothers, girls, and boys,

In his arms his children gathers,

And sees to all their toys.

We grieve so over our losses—from Paradise to life itself and everything in between. Our spirits long for the restoration of all things. Because of the work of Jesus, the restoration of all things is promised (Acts 3:21) and is on its way. As Julian of Norwich said, “All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” Revelations of Divine Love.

All things will be restored to us, but the price is the loss of our self—we must give it back to the Lord who made it so that it too can be restored to its original design. As T.S. Eliot says,

Quick now, here, now, always—

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one. Little Gidding.

The rose, of course, is Dante’s vision of Paradise. We are promised, Paradise shall once again be ours.