Genesis 37:35
“And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.”
In the verse above, a very disturbing statement is made about Jacob. It says, “…but he refused to be comforted;…” This statement was made about Jacob after he received the report that Joseph was killed. There is no doubt that his heart broke for his son. Joseph was the firstborn son of Rachel. Jacob loved Joseph more than his other children. Now, his dream was taken away. The focus of his life was gone. When his children came to comfort him, he refused it. He decided he was going to go to the grave mourning the death of his son.
Hold on! How foolish to refuse comfort from those whom Jacob still had. Jacob determined to mourn the death of Joseph for the remainder of his life. In all reality, he refused to move on in life. What Jacob missed was that he still had ten children who were alive. Some of those children had given him grandchildren. He still had a daughter who loved him. Yet, he missed all of this because he refused to move on from the loss of Joseph.
From what major tragedy in life have you refused to move on? Have you experienced the loss of a loved one? Maybe it was a child who passed away? Maybe it was your spouse whom the LORD took home to Heaven. Maybe it was a parent whom you were not ready to lose. Dealing with the loss of a loved one can certainly not be an easy thing with which to deal. Yet, when you experience a loss, you can either let the loss destroy the rest of your life or you can move on and let the loss build you to help others.
When you experience a loss in life, you must decide not to let that loss take the rest of your life from you. In other words, life is moving on whether or not you do. If you refuse to move on from your loss, then you are robbing yourself of life that God could use. You are not helping yourself or anyone else by refusing to move on.
Moreover, there are others in your life that still need you. When you refuse to move on from a loss, you are hurting those who still love you. If you will look around after a loss, you will see there are many others on whom you can place your love. Instead of allowing your life to waste away, you need to move on and place your love on those who are still alive.
Furthermore, take the loss in your life and use it to help others. God never sends something in your life without a purpose. Every time God allows something to happen in your life, He meant for you to use it as a tool to help others. If you will move on from your loss, you will find that you can allow your loss to be a blessing to others who have experienced a loss.
I am not saying that you shouldn’t mourn when you experience a loss, but what I am saying is that you should not let the loss take the remainder of your life away. You still have life, and your can either waste it by refusing to move on, or you can take the loss as God’s instrument to make Heaven a sweeter place and a tool to help others with their loss. If you choose to move on, you will find that the one whom you lost will grow sweeter in your heart and mind than if you refused to move on. Don’t let your loss rob you of life. Move on and turn your loss into a blessing for you and others.