Reflections on Suffering and Loss

For my family and I, this past year was the most painful and difficult we’ve ever experienced. We suffered deep loss and grief. It’s hard to describe the intensity of it. I remember many nights, lying on the floor, thinking I would surely die from the agonies of a broken heart. It literally felt like my heart was being torn apart. Grief is a physical thing. You feel it in your bones and body.

But in those moments of complete vulnerability, I felt the presence and comfort of God as never before. I felt like a little child being held by my Heavenly Father. Psalm 56:8 says that God “keeps count of our night-time tossings, and puts our tears in a bottle.” It’s an expression of His deep care for us. He is not indifferent to our suffering. Our tears matter to God. 

One verse that has been very precious to me is Psalm 126:5 – “those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy.” The Bible says, every tear is a seed. Time sows the seeds. And then, one day, all those tears shed in agony will produce a vast harvest of joy, beyond counting. This is the promise of Scripture. We see the first installment of it in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This gives me great comfort and hope.

Suffering can never destroy believers; it only ennobles and deepens the soul. It enlarges the heart’s capacity to receive Christ. It produces compassion for fellow sufferers. It gives grace and humility, which makes us useful for the Kingdom of God. And ultimately, when borne with patience and resilient joy, it gives God glory as all-sufficient and all-satisfying.

The idea behind our logo

The idea behind our logo is that the cross is in the empty space. The blue quarter-pieces fill out what would ordinarily be the negative space around the cross. So what the eye sees at first are the four quarter-circles, and then, only after looking longer is the cross discernible.

This is the way we see Christ in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, we see Christ, not in what Israel did, but in what she failed to do. We see the necessity of Christ's sacrificial death in the negative space of Israel's failures and disobedience. Our logo is a small visual representation of this concept and this way of reading Scripture.

Special thanks to Jennifer Cheung who worked on the first draft of the logo, and to her friend Bonnie Man who created the final version of the logo.