Biggest Loser, Part 1 -- A Different Way to Measure Life

The year of 2010 has been a season of extreme loss for many of us. Personally I have never faced such a dark season.

My time of loss started about two years ago in 2009. I never thought in my wildest dreams (or in this case, “nightmare”) that I could ever lose so many things in such a short 24-month period of time.

My list of “Top 5 Things Lost in 2009-2010” (in chronological order) is:

1. My Marriage. Our once secure, thriving marriage of 16 years was changed forever in February 2009 due to a 5 ½-year prison sentence my husband received for white-collar crime.
2. My Job. My successful, full-time job as the CFO of three businesses was lost.
3. My Insurance. Both medical and dental coverage for our family was gone as a consequence of losing my full-time position.
4. Our House. Our townhouse where we lived for 10 years was lost through foreclosure.
5. My Identity. I no longer knew who I really was as I struggled to redefine my roles and purpose in life as a wife, mother/ sole provider for six children ages 3-16, and management executive.

Despair, fear, and anguish often gripped my mind and heart as I struggled to know how to respond to each crisis. Questions of doubting God’s sovereignty and love for me were the constant battles I fought in my mind day-to-day, hour-by-hour, and even moment-by-moment as I tried to keep life as “normal” as possible for our children.

This was definitely not the life I had planned, chosen or ever expected. Every area of my life was spinning out of control, causing me to cry out to the Lord in my distress and desperation (Psalm 18:6). I realized as a temporary single-mom with six kids that my situation was impossible without God’s supernatural intervention.

Was He really in control??

Yet even in the midst of tremendous loss, chaos, and despair, I have seen that God in His sovereignty is powerfully at work. And in this darkness, I have come to more fully know and experience Christ, realizing that He alone can be enough for us.

My sole purpose in sharing my story in this and in more upcoming articles is to glorify God alone for the ways He is comforting and providing for us and to encourage you in the midst of whatever difficult circumstances you may be facing in 2011.

It will be difficult to tell in some ways. Yet because I have experienced His amazing presence and power so strongly in my own losses, how can I keep from sharing it with others who may be desperately searching for hope?...

Psalm 73:28 says, “But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works.” 

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Biggest Loser, Part 2