A Redesigned Life By Tracy SteelSample

Day Five

Negative Space

Design principle to ponder: Space

Principle helps us: pause in the midst of grief and loss causing us to refocus on and fill ourselves back up with the positives of God whenever life doesn’t go as planned.

Losses in my life, particularly my mother’s death, has left great space in my heart. I feel incredibly empty sometimes. I bet you feel the same as the result of the loss of anything in your life—whether a job, a dream, or a person. 

Yet there is purpose in the space that loss leaves in our lives. Think what would happen if there was no space between the words or the sentences in this paragraph. We wouldn’t know where a complete group of thoughts ended or began. The same principle is true for our homes. If the space within it is filled to the brim, it feels cluttered and dirtier. Larger, more open spaces give one’s mind and eyes a moment to pause. They can make a home feel roomier and cleaner.

Likewise, grief and loss create their own type of silence or empty, negative space within our hearts. Grief is like negative space in a piece of art. It gives our life definition, and at times seems to go on forever, leaving its presence all over our actions and thoughts. Our grief, with its accompanying anger, depression, and fear, can feel like it is lord over us. Be encouraged, for it is not. God is sovereign and Lord over all of these things. 

God, then, uses loss like an artist uses negative space to give us permission to pause, reevaluate, and ultimately draw our attention back to what is positive—God himself and the hope we have in him. Just like positive space is the focal point or subject matter of a piece of art or interior room, God is our positive space, the main focal point of our lives as well. There’s nothing more positive or more fulfilling than the personhood and ways of our God. Death, grief, and loss help us learn and live this, enabling us to find our hope and restoration in him. When we fill the negative space in our hearts with the positive of God, we will be able to uncover the purposes of God when life doesn’t go as planned. 

Loss of any kind leaves an empty, negative space in our hearts. But God has a purpose for this, and he uses it to fill us with what is positive.  This is why your grief matters. What or who you have lost matters. I know this is not what you want or had planned on happening. Maybe the person or the thing you have lost no longer matters to the world, but your losses still matter to God because he allows them to be part of his design for your life. Be comforted and encouraged. Allow your pain to point you back to the positive God who loves you.

When has God used a loss in your life to draw you closer to him?