Rebuilding

Moving beyond loss involves rebuilding — rebuilding our lives without that one who is missing. What is involved in this rebuilding? What does it look like?

While it looks different for each one, rebuilding involves the same challenges (translation: opportunities) for all of us.

The biggest challenge is establishing a new identity. Who am I apart from this one who is no longer a part of my life? This opportunity allows me to redefine myself, claiming an identity not based up or built around the other person. It allows me to explore who God created me to be and who God is calling me to be as I move forward. It allows me to identify and live out of my unique gifts and passions. It offers me the opportunity to express those gifts, lived out in my area of passion, in new and different ways.

Whenever I refer to myself — label myself — as widow or widower or divorced, the one who is gone or the role I played with them continues to be a part of my identity. How can we allow someone to be a part of our past without them defining our future? How can I be more than the role I had in that one relationship? Discovering our identity apart from them does not discount them or dishonor them. Rather, it honors who God created us to be. In the splintering of The UMC, those who have been labeled as progressives can no longer define themselves in comparison to those who have been labeled as conservatives. (“I’m not like that” is a fundamental way we humans define ourselves.) A stronger, deeper-rooted identity is needed. The splintering offers us the opportunity to reestablish and reclaim that deeper identity.

Rebuilding involves redefining who we are. This redefining (or clarifying) who we are allows us to live out of who we are rather than in reaction to or adaptation to another.

Another opportunity rebuilding offers is that of clarifying and reaffirming our purpose. Redefining who we are is asking “Who am I?” Clarifying our purpose is asking “Why am I here?” When our identity is tied up in a relationship or in a role we played, our sense of purpose is gone whenever we lose that relationship or role. Rebuilding presents us the opportunity to rediscover — or perhaps discover for the first time — the core purpose of our lives. It is that purpose that guides us and gives meaning to our lives going forward.  

The splintering of The UMC offers us the opportunity to refocus on our purpose and recommit to living out of that purpose. The controversy and conflict over LGBTQ+ issues, with its focus on the opposing side, has distracted us from that purpose. Rebuilding offers us the opportunity to evaluate and restructure our lives around that purpose rather than simply doing what we have always done in the way we have always done it.

Redefining our identity and clarifying our purpose requires us to get clear about the foundational truths upon which we build our lives — the third challenge and opportunity. These truths shape our identity and clarify our purpose.

Rebuilding means reengaging life. It is continuing to live fully and deeply — without the one who is gone, with a redefined identity, with a renewed sense of purpose, with a renewed clarity about the foundational truths upon which we build our lives.

Such reengaging can be challenging, even intimidating. It requires us to learn, to adjust, to develop new skills, to develop a new sense of independence. It requires us to grow beyond who we were. If we shrink back from the work of rebuilding and reengaging, we will remain stuck, our lives defined by the past and the one who is gone.

Rebuilding and reengaging offer us the opportunity to live out our faith. We do the work in dependence upon God for wisdom, guidance, and strength. We undertake the journey trusting God’s steadfast, faithful love. We shift our focus from the past that was to the future that God has for us — a future we help create by rebuilding and reengaging.