How Loss Can Help Us Savor the Present

There’s a spirea bush outside my front door that used to be in the backyard by the fence. It wasn’t really thriving there, so a few years ago, I dug it up and replanted it in the front garden.

I didn’t have high hopes for the shrub’s survival in its new spot, but I wanted to give it a chance. Happily, it seems to like it there. I didn’t really notice it much in the backyard, but now I get to enjoy delicate white flowers in the spring and pretty green leaves in the summer.

What I love the most, though, is what happens to this spirea in the fall.

Words don’t do it justice, and my photo-taking skills aren’t great. But as the leaves change from green to red to yellow, and when the light is just right, the bush literally glows. I often stop on the front sidewalk after my morning runs just to admire it.

One morning not too long ago, I was outside when it caught my eye again. It was brilliant, almost like a burning bush (the kind Moses encountered, not the plant variety that was also in full fall array at the time).

I didn’t take off my shoes, but I did snap some pictures and stood there drinking in the sight for quite a while.

The evening that followed was full of thunder, wind and rain, and when I stopped by the bush after my run the next morning, I was met with a very different sight. The day before the bush had been clothed in glowing yellow leaves; the next day many of those leaves were on the ground.

I was startled that it had happened so fast, and yet, I shouldn’t have been. It’s fall, after all. That’s how nature works around here.

I was just glad I had taken the time to absorb the beauty the day before, to capture the sight on my phone, even though the pictures that I take are not really worth a thousand words.

The fleeting nature of life has never been more obvious to me. Just a few weeks ago, my father-in-law passed away after battling lung cancer. We knew the end was coming; we just didn’t know it would come so soon.

In an Instagram post, I wrote that it’s hard to imagine a world without him. He was a kind and gentle, a good man all around. I’m thankful for all the photos we took over the years that show specific moments when he was sharing his love with his wife, children and especially his grandchildren.

Someone else—probably Randy—took the pictures. Biff was fully engaged with the person right in front of him.

Then I think about the bush—in full fall splendor one day and almost bare the next—and I wonder.

Given all the distractions crammed into life in 2021, how do we learn to savor the present, to take each moment as it comes, to hold everything about tomorrow loosely as we trust the One who is already there?

It certainly takes more than heartfelt Instagram posts or beautiful fall foliage to assist us. I’m starting to think that sometimes, the only way we begin learning this is through sudden loss, unexpected outcomes, tightly held plans that don’t come to fruition.

When we’re faced with a future we weren’t expecting, perhaps that’s one way to find peace. To look for the beauty around us, the uniqueness of the people we’re with, the ways God is working and moving, the truth He is revealing—to ourselves and our loved ones.

Not so we can get a good picture to post on Instagram (although it’s fun when it works out that way), but so we can give thanks to the God who made the bushes and designs each sunrise and knit our children together exactly as he wanted them to be.

I feel a pang when I see the bare bush by my front door. I feel much greater sadness when I think about how I won’t hear my father-in-law’s soft voice again until we meet in heaven someday.

The truth has never been more apparent. The grass withers and the flower fades, but—thankfully—the Word of God endures forever. (Isaiah 40:8)

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with #tellhisstory, InstaEncouragements, Recharge Wednesday, Let’s Have Coffee, Inspire Me Monday and Grace & Truth.