In the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun, the protagonist, Frances, is broken hearted and devastated by her husband who has admitted his infidelity, denied that he ever loved her, divorced her for his lover, and sued her for alimony in order to take their marital home. Frances is left broken and empty. On a whim, she takes a trip to Tuscany and without much forethought, buys an old estate and begins to renovate it.

In one emotional scene, she says to her friend, “Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn’t actually kill you. Like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck.  It should. When someone you’ve promised to cherish till death do you part says “I never loved you,” it should kill you instantly. You shouldn’t have to wake up day after day after that . . . “

Frances is talking about her heartbreaking divorce, but really her sentiment applies to any kind of loss.  How many times have I myself thought, “I couldn’t survive this” or “I would die if that happened to me.”   When I married my husband, I was convinced that I wouldn’t survive a move to the Middle East and living so far away from my home and family in Florida, but I did. When I became a mother, I knew I would die if anything ever happened to one of my children, but I lost one of my children and I’m still here.

Maybe you’ve had the same thoughts?  Maybe you’ve assumed you couldn’t survive a broken heart caused by loss of love, or betrayal, or death, or sickness, or bankruptcy, or injury.  The surprising thing, is that we don’t die from a broken heart. We survive it and we have to keep on surviving day after day.

When Henry died, little did I know that the breaking of my heart was the easy part.  It is the surviving in the following days, weeks, months, and now years that has been so difficult.  Maybe we think “I could never survive the loss of one of our children” not because we can’t survive it, but because we don’t want to survive it.

This past week as Hurricane Michael smashed into the Florida Panhandle, I was reminded again of what loss looks like.  From a continent away, I have been glued to any news I could find about the nearly Category 5 storm and its destruction of the counties I will always view as home.   A hurricane is a real visualization of what loss does in our lives.  Some of us know that a massive storm is coming into our lives and we do what we can to prepare.  Some of us expect the storm to be far less powerful than it turns out to be.  Either way, we can never be fully prepared for the amount of devastation that might be coming our way.

As the storm approaches, we hunker down in our homes with our provisions.  We hear the wind ripping away pieces of our home and with it pieces of our security.  We feel the rain pouring through any crevice left open.  We see trees that have stood for generations, topple over in minutes.  All of the things we have counted on as permanent, are gone. We think we will die, but we don’t.  We survive. The storm passes and the skies clear, but we are left standing in the midst of complete destruction.

We thought surviving the storm was the impossible part, but it wasn’t.  Now we have to survive day after day after day.   Homes that were built over years are leveled.  Century oaks and forests that were lovingly tended over generations are gone in an instant.  Places that were fertile are left barren and desolate.  Our world is left in a chaos of rubble and debris.

And yet, whatever the storm is that has invaded our lives, we somehow manage to survive. We slowly clear the debris.  We rebuild buildings and homes.  We face yet another medical appointment. We learn to trust in the wake of betrayal. We love in spite of the risk of loss.  Even with pierced and broken hearts, we have the strength to love others, to hope in the future, and to have faith in the One who is in control of it all.

I heard one reporter say that there was concern that the trees in the Florida Panhandle had not endured a large storm like Hurricane Michael for many years.  Because of this, the trees did not have to root as deeply as they might have had they been exposed to high winds at various stages of their lives, which makes them very susceptible to collapse.  It didn’t escape my attention that enduring storms made the trees stronger, but a life of ease and no storms made them weak and likely to fall.

I don’t pretend to know the “why” of pretty much anything, but I’m beginning to understand that this enduring and surviving that we all do – it changes us. It tests the genuineness of our faith. It makes us stronger. And, like the trees, if we are stronger, we can help and maybe even protect those who are not.

Whether you are standing, broken hearted, in the aftermath of a massive storm or you are the loved one of someone who is, I pray you will be encouraged and strengthened.

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  I Peter 1:6-7

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.   Romans 5:3-5