Yesterday marked 17 years of that loss.  It is certainly a day I will never forget.  I was a junior in high school, and like most I was coasting through life with no real concrete plans for what would come next.  Sure I had dreams and goals, but nothing substantial.  I had some thoughts about what I would like to do with my life.  Most of those if I am honest were probably largely shaped by those around me telling me what I “should” be doing with my life.  That day though…everything changed.

I walked into school that day clueless of what had happened the night before.  I had seen the accident on the local news and thought to myself, “I wonder if I know who that was?”  With little thought I went to bed only to wake up the next morning to find my world shaken in ways I could have never imagined.  Several of my friends had been in an accident and my best friend had been killed.

How does a 16-year-old process and deal with a loss like that?  At that age there is an unspoken feeling of invisibility.  An ignorant assumption of dying in old age that is immediately torn away with the sudden loss of someone seemingly too young.

I spent the summer that followed angry at God.  To be even more transparent, angry does not come close to describing how I felt.  Many days that summer were spent yelling at a God I could no longer understand, and staring at a headstone I could not comprehend.  There was no framework within my limited theology and world-view to even begin to make sense of what I was experiencing.

Over the weeks and months that followed, God begin to do something in my life I would not have imagined.  In fact, I did not even realize it was happening.  Several months later I found myself with the most intimate relationship with Jesus I had ever experienced.  I had also surrendered to a call to vocational ministry and had started preaching.  It was by far the sweetest season of my life, and yet it had been born out of the most painful time to that point I had ever experienced.

In the same way, for the believer, our lives should be shaped by the loss of another. This loss rather, is in actuality a gain. While my friend could not overcome death, Jesus has. As a result of knowing Jesus, he overcame death through Him.

God took what was utterly painful and ugly and made it beautiful and good.  It is the very picture of the gospel and the very nature of the restoration and healing of a loving, patient, and relentless God.

It has been 17 years and I still miss my friend dearly.  I am grateful for having been his friend.  His life certainly made and impact on mine…his death even more.  All of this possible because of the death of another who willingly gave his life for me.  A Savior who I regularly forget to cherish as I should, but one who loves me in spite of me.

The question you and I must ask is this, “Have our lives been shaped by the loss of another?”  And, “Was his name Jesus?”