On Being Grateful For Loss

November is home to Thanksgiving as well as being National Adoption Month. In the spirit of what this month means, I am starting a new series on being grateful. As C.S. Lewis said, "We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is 'good' because it is good, if 'bad' because it works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country."

Today my goal is to muster up the courage to say something difficult and truly mean it.


I am grateful for loss. 


I am grateful for the razor-edged and searing experience of loss that shook me to my core. For an experience so profound that it has claimed pieces of my heart. I am grateful for loss because it makes what I had that much sweeter. While I am not grateful that my sister died, I am grateful for the changes the loss has produced. And that's hard to admit.
Lewis said in The Problem of Pain, "Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf word."

While her loss is so incredibly painful still, I am so grateful to have had a sister. And part of having her was also losing her.

-Megan