Losing and Finding

In our suffering, we can know that Christ sustains us. He is not unacquainted with suffering, having given His life so that we may know Him, and offering His life to us as we humble ourselves before Him. 1 Peter chapter 4 states:
1 Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,
2 that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.

We can know God when we encounter triumph and when we suffer, and even in our suffering, we can experience a measure of His victory, because we know that Christ is with us. Our default position is to expect and revel in our comfort, yet we grow in the Lord and can experience His nearness when circumstances don't necessarily conform to our wishes.  Recognizing that we grow in our pain, we 

can embrace our difficulties with the proper attitude, choosing to glorify the Lord and grow.

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Even in our losses, we can gain knowledge of the Lord who loves us - Paul recognized that we can find, or discover, more about the Lord even when we are challenged or even when what or whom we love are taken away. He writes in Philippians 3:
8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ

9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;
10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,
11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Shawn Johnson is a former Olympic gymnast, as well as a winning contestant on Dancing With the Stars.  I first met her almost ten years ago at an International Christian Retail Show in Orlando.  She is now a two-time mom with husband Andrew East.

But, there has certainly been trial along with way in their pursuit of expanding their family.  The Easts suffered a miscarriage in 2017, according to a Movieguide article, and Shawn had stated on YouTube:

“If you are pregnant, trying to get pregnant, if you’re trying to adopt, if you’re in the process of expanding your family or recently suffering from a loss, we are praying for you. All those beautiful babies out there, all those rainbow babies, all those babies in heaven...We love you guys.”

A "rainbow baby" is a child who is born following the loss of a child.  

A previous Movieguide article provided a more extensive look at their struggle.  Shawn shared her pain through social media and reached out to others for comfort.  The article quotes her as saying:

“And to see the thousands and thousands of women that came forward and just said, ‘I went through this. I’m struggling through this. Thank you, I felt so alone until now’ — I felt the same way, and it was the only way I healed.”

The article goes on to say:

Johnson East is also an outspoken Christian and said that she is thankful for how God has used her experience for a greater purpose.

“Looking back on everything we’ve gone through… it’s all for a purpose,” Johnson East said. “It all makes it worth it in the end. It makes things more sweet. I think it’s through those heartache moments that you truly learn. You learn who you are, you learn how to be a better wife and mother and daughter.”

Their new baby boy, born July 20, is named Jett James, joining his sister Drew Hazel, who arrived in 2019.  

Shawn has learned to recognize her identity in Christ, which sustained her in the aftermath of her first Olympics, at age 16, when she won a silver medal - the expectation was for gold.  Movieguide relates, using material from an "I Am Second" video:

Because Johnson East felt like she let the world down, she focussed [sic] solely on her training. Despite eventually winning a gold medal, Johnson said that her dedication to the sport was to appease the world and no one else.

However, the former gymnast recalls the moment that God called her to put her identity in Him and not the world.

“In that instant, I felt the entire world be lifted off my shoulders,” Johnson East said. “God is the answer to everything. Jesus sacrificed his life on the cross so that when I stood up there and I was given that gold medal, yes, it’s a monumental and amazing experience and wonderful thing. But it’s not the end-all be-all.”

Shawn Johnson East has known loss - as a competitive athlete and an expectant mother. But, because she has found the One who brings love, meaning, and hope to our lives, she has the capability to find His peace.  When we lose in life - and we will - we can pursue our Savior and find the knowledge and assurance of His presence.

We have to be willing to lose in order to find what God has in store for us.  We can try to preserve what we think is ours, or we can release our own ambitions, possessions, and relations, and allow God to show us His magnificent plan.  We have to place the emphasis on the things that are important in life. 

We learn so much about the Lord when we lose.  Jesus talks about losing our soul if we try to gain the world, and He calls us to lay down what we love in order that we may discover the perfect plan that He has in store for us.