Loss vs. Gain

Out of respect for the season I'll start off with a football analogy. A loss of yards is not a good thing when you're on offense while a gain of yards is great when you're on offense. The majority of time the announcers are speaking from the perspective of the offensive team. That's why you hear more often than not "A loss of 5 yards on the play,' or "A gain of 32 yards and a 1st down." It's all about persepctive - in the above statements the defense gained 5 yards toward their goaline but then lost or gave up 32 yards.
Why do I bring this up? Because recently people around me have been focusing primarily with the loss perspective. I hear comments like, "Are we going to lose you at SPC now that you're getting married?" "I hear we're losing Andy to you." "Your parents are losing another daughter." "We're losing another one to marriage." So much attention is being focused on the loss of everyone else which has got me thinking, what are the gains? To me, I'm gaining a husband, a live-in best friend for life. I'm gaining a new identity. I'm not losing my family, I'm gaining another family. I'm not losing my church family, I'm gaining another church family. I hope I'm not losing nor Andy is losing any friends, just gaining each other's friends. My parents are not losing a daughter, they're gaining another son just as Andy's parents aren't losing a son but gaining a daughter. I'm not lost to marriage but gaining a new life.
Loss vs. gain...it all depends on your perspective. We, as humans, are born very selfish and self-centered creatures and therefore when we focus on the loss vs. the gain it is usually in terms of how it effects us and not how it effects other people. I could have looked at my brother and sister when they married their spouses and thought, I'm losing my brother and my sister but instead I thought, they're gaining a wife and a husbad and I'm gaining a new sister and new brother!
All life transitions will require both loss and gain. Transitioning from high school to college means loss of the security of your home and living with your parents but you gain an independence and new life experiences. Transitioning from college to working world means loss of student mentality (no money, sleeping in, group projects) as you gain an understanding of the responsibility of working full-time and enjoy new benefits (money, going to bed early and no group projects!). Transitioning from a single life to a married life means loss of self-interests only, self-thinking only and depending only on yourself. It means a gain of another persons interests, thinking of another before yourself and depending on them as they depend on you. For me it means loss of my own closet, my own bathroom, making "house rules" alone and my way only; it means loss of doing things always for me on my terms, my way and in my own time. But it also means gains of love, gains of another persons energy and attention and interests in me, gaining a new identity and gaining a new life alongside of someone I love very much.
Selfishness is at the root of loss vs. gain. When a believer pass away we all mourn because we have lost someone we love. There is nothing wrong in doing this but we should find peace knowing that they have gained eternal life with Christ and be comforted in that. When people move away we are sad because we have lost them in close proximity but they will be gaining new experiences and perhaps that was best for them. Maybe I'm the one being selfish as I am focused on what I am gaining through getting married and not focusing on how a gain for me may feel like a loss to someone else. Point noted. I just don't like people focusing on the negatives all the time of loss because with each transition there are gains too. Nobody is losing me, just gaining Andy as part of me and nobody is losing Andy, just gaining me as part of him.
The Bible also talks about loss vs. gain in a few places. In Luke 9:25 it says "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, an yet lose or forfeit his very self?" And in all the gospels Jesus talks about losing our life here in this world will result in gaining our eternal life (Matt 10:39, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24, John 12:25). My prayer is that I would be sensitive to the loss vs. gain perspective because whenever there is a loss, there is also a gain and different people are at different sides of the outcome.