So, have you ever considered the gain that comes from losing?  Many people across the country have been captivated for over eleven seasons now by the hit TV show, The Biggest Loser.  Perhaps you’ve seen it at some point along the way.  I’ve often wondered if the show might be better characterized by being entitled, The Beautiful Loser.  Season after season the show chronicles the contestant’s journey as they put countless hours in the gym and in the kitchen exercising their bodies and strengthening their nutritional knowledge as they attempt to be the one who in the end has lost the most percentage of their starting weight.  While no one who has seen the show can deny the physical transformation that occurs over the weeks the contestants are on “the ranch” there is an even greater picture that emerges from the story line.  It too is all about losing.  And what a beautiful picture of losing it is!  Let’s take Moses for example.   Moses, a Tongan, began the show at 440-lbs. and by the time of the show’s finale had lost over 153-lbs.  While that is an incredible transformational feat in and of itself, it’s not the real story of Moses’ transformation.  Moses experienced the redemptive and regenerative beauty of losing when, among other things, he was able to return to New Zealand having met the minimum weight restriction required to bungee jump off one of New Zealand’s many bridges.  You see Moses was about to experience the culmination of his journey by coming face to face with his fears.  With his elderly dad in tears and standing by his side, Moses, though trembling with fear himself, jumped and at the very point he realized he wasn’t going to die he exclaimed, “I’m alive!”  Isn’t that the story line that is meant for us?  Isn’t there something beautiful about our lives that emerge as we rid ourselves of the shackles of life that have held us back for so long?  While those things can certainly look different for each of us there seems to be some common elements that can lead us to our own story of redemption and regeneration.  It’s in part the story line of putting others before ourselves or the counterintuitive truth of being last to be first.  Perhaps in the end there is something beautiful to be gained as we “lose” our lives for the benefit of others.  Could it just be that the beauty we discover along the way is that in our loss we too become more fully alive?  My how beautiful that would be!  Peace.