There is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them, is there?

We hold on so tightly, because we’re terrified of loss. We hold on till our own hands bleed. And in that self-shattering persistence, we fail to see the answer: Just let go

“Everybody will die, of course, sooner or later…Everybody will die, but very few people want to be reminded of that fact.”

Grief, a type of sadness that most often occurs when you have lost someone you love, is a sneaky thing, because it can disappear for a long time, and then pop back up when you least expect it.

Be careful lest you yourself become the goat and carry unseen spiritual burdens into the wilderness. More serious by far than the loss of property or money are the unseen spiritual penalties which accrue like interest on a debt which one day, in the eternal scheme of things, must surely be paid.

I read somewhere of a young couple who settled in the wilderness. While the man cleared the land, his wife tended things about the homestead. Occasionally, the cow would get into the garden, and the husband would complain.

One day, as he left to get supplies, he said in a sarcastic way, “Do you think you’ll be able to keep the cow in while I am gone?” She thought she could; she would try.

That night a terrible storm arose. Frightened by thunder, the cow escaped into the woods. Several days later the husband returned to an empty cabin and an apologetic note: “A storm came up, and the cow got out. I am so sorry, but I think I can find her.”

He searched; neither had survived. The author concluded the incident with these words:

Boys flying kites haul in their white-winged birds;
You can call back your kites, but you can’t call back your words.
“Careful with fire” is good advice, we know;
“Careful with words” is ten times doubly so.
Thoughts unexpressed will often fall back dead.But God Himself can’t kill them, once they are said!
(Will Carleton, The First Settler’s Story).

Much of the misery encouraged by Satan comes from losses. Satan experienced that kind of misery when he lost his first estate. Now he tries to inflict similar losses on thse who ahve proceeded to mortality, the second estate. Satan encourages a loss of virtue, a loss of integrity, a loss of reputation, a loss of ideals, a loss of wholesome associations, and even a loss of life.