When You’ve Lost Everything–But, God
Have you ever lost something that felt like everything?
I don’t ask that casually. For some of you, the question immediately brings faces and memories to mind. A marriage. A child. A dream. A home. A career. A future you were certain God had promised.
For me, it happened twenty years ago, and the experience shaped my life.
At the time, I lived in Southern California. I had a home I loved, a young son, and a life that looked good from the outside. Behind the scenes, however, everything was unraveling. My husband and I were going through bankruptcy. The house was headed toward foreclosure. Our marriage was ending. I was angry, exhausted, and deeply disappointed in God.
One day I found myself alone in the house, standing in the dining room, furious. I remember pointing upward, and shook my finger in the face of God.
“Yours is the cattle on a thousand hills. What skin is it off Your nose to give me five thousand dollars for the mortgage?”
Nothing happened.
No voice from heaven, no job for my husband, no miracle loan. Nothing had happened and nothing would.
Somehow I found myself upstairs in my bedroom, sitting in a glider chair. I don’t even remember climbing the stairs. I was–simply empty. All the anger, bitterness, and injustice had burned out. I just sat.
Then something incredible happened.
Without even thinking about it, I slid from the chair onto my knees and heard myself speaking words I hadn’t consciously remembered. “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Only later did I realize I had quoted Job.
I knew the Lord was present, but I was still a shell.
Then, while I was still on my knees, my heart started to burn. Not emotionally or metaphorically, but physically. The heat was getting uncomfortable before it stopped growing.
It stayed, I don’t know how long. I didn’t move. I suppose I must have breathed, but I don’t remember.
Finally, it faded, but I knew I was present for a miracle. So, I did the most important thing I could think of: I called my mom.
Mom, a Bible teacher and faithful follower of Christ, identified the verse as Job 1:21. And when told her what had happened to my heart, I was a little nervous about her reaction.
But she reminded me that John Wesley, the father of Methodism, described something similar in the 18th century. He wrote that he had felt broken, his life shattered. But during a nighttime walk in London, he felt his heart “strangely warmed” during a profound encounter with the Holy Spirit. And now I had too.
Twenty years ago, that day is still with me.
Not because God rescued me from loss, because He didn’t. My circumstances didn’t change: the bankruptcy went through, we separated and later divorced, and we were just able to sell our house before foreclosure.
But God was there and He was acting in power. Talk about my life doing a 180.
I mourned that house, but was able to move into the mountains where I had wanted to live since I was a kid. My former husband and I eventually reconciled as friends and co-parents.And God opened work and ministry doors I could never have imagined while I was clinging like grim death to what I thought I needed.
I’ve seen this same faith in others.
One dear friend lost her adult son to cancer. She was a prayer warrior for others, but God did not answer her prayer by saving her son.
Years later I asked her how she kept believing. She simply said, “I just had faith.” Even when she felt her prayers were bouncing off the ceiling, she had faith—and a closer walk with the Lord.
Another friend buried both a son and a husband. Yet she continued to walk with God because she knew death was not the end of the story.
I thought about both of those women when my own mother died unexpectedly after what should have been a routine surgery.
Here is another story of faith, a few years after my experience with my heart and talking to Mom.
She was undergoing heart surgery in Washington state, and I lived in California. My sister Kerry was in charge of calling us with news. She called me to tell me Mom was out of surgery, it had gone well, and she was in the recovery room.
We all felt confident that she would be fine, but I was a bit anxious.
It was late in November, so I decided to relax by putting up and decorating my Christmas tree. I got the tree up and wrapped three strands of lights.
The top and bottom strings lit up, but the middle one was dark. No big deal, I’d hit the drugstore and get a new one.
Before I could leave, Kerry called again. “Something’s gone wrong in recovery. People are praying. I’ll call you back as soon as I know more.”
I was going anywhere now. I prayed.
The phone rang again. I picked up.
Kerry’s voice said, “Chris, we lost her.”
I was wandering through the apartment in shock. I paced up and down the hallway, then went a little way into the living room… and I looked at the tree.
The dark strand was glowing.
For an hour it had stayed dead. Now it blazed with light.
My mom had passed and she was with the Lord who she loved so much.
And all I knew is that God used that moment to do a miracle using a silly strand of Christmas lights. My Mom was with Him. I would see her again. It was going to be all right.
And it was.
Whatever you have lost, and some things are big giant losses, I’ll repeat my question: Was there a time when you lost everything—But, God?
Because to those who believe, He is life and joy eternal—no matter what.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” (Eph. 3:20)
Question: Have you ever experienced a season when you lost something precious—a relationship, a dream, your health, financial security, or someone you loved—and yet saw God remain faithful? I’d love to hear your story.