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Plot Delas #15: how to overcome a great loss, with lessons from Ben-Hur

In episode 15 of Plot Delas, the hosts use Judah, Messala, Ester and Iras from Ben-Hur to talk about how to overcome a great loss. Recap and video.

4 min readBy Editorial team

How do you survive a great loss? The death of someone you love, the end of a relationship, a broken dream. That is the topic of episode 15 of Plot Delas, the Univer Vídeo podcast, which aired on Sunday, November 1. Marelis Brum, Fabíola Bianco, Juliana Bonacina and Catherine Suzuki start from the characters of Ben-Hur, A Série to show the difference between merely surviving and truly overcoming. The full video is further down.

When the ground disappears beneath your feet

Right at the start, Marelis points out that everyone, at some point, goes through something that takes away the foundation of their life: losing a husband, a job, a dream. The situations differ, but the effect is similar. Suddenly, the world you knew as normal no longer exists.

In the series, the strongest example is Judah Ben-Hur. He had already lost his father as a boy, took over the family business and was making plans for the future. Overnight, he lost everything and was taken as a slave. The hosts call it a "giant wave" that arrives just when a person thinks they have finally swum to the shore.

Five characters, five ways to survive

Throughout the conversation, each Ben-Hur character becomes a mirror of reactions we see in real life:

  • Judah Ben-Hur: surviving through revenge. He is strong and does not give up, but his motivation is to get everything back and take revenge. The hosts note that he prays asking for what he wants, but has not yet asked God what God wants from him.
  • Messala: numbing the pain with power. Marked by an abusive childhood, he sweeps the past under the rug and seeks prestige and respect as a Roman. On the outside, he wins. On the inside, he is still trapped by what he lived through.
  • Ester: waiting with the right intention. She lives with the pain of hope deferred. What stood out was the change in her prayer: instead of asking for Judah to come back to her, she asks for the family to return to serve the Lord.
  • Iras: the "everything is fine" mask. Beautiful, confident and in control, she appears to have overcome everything. But given a small hope, she reveals the emptiness and need she hides.
  • Miriam: the question "where is God?" Judah's mother asks where the Messiah is in the face of so much injustice. The hosts explain that this question often shifts the blame for what is happening onto God.

The lines that stayed with us

A few lines from the hosts throughout the episode, with the minute they appear:

"People say: 'I'll get there even if it's through the power of hatred.' What kind of power is that? It's the wrong one." (6 min)

"Often, we can only recover what we love after we rise again on the inside." (10 min)

"My God, help me see what is right to happen now inside me: change, transformation, peace." (19 min)

"God knows what we want. We bring our desires to Him, but we give Him room to act according to His will." (31 min)

"There is life after a great loss. There is life after a great disappointment." (34 min)

"We only grow in the middle of the challenge, in the middle of the storm." (46 min)

Watch the full episode

Set aside an hour, grab a coffee and press play:

Plot Delas, episode 15: the method that saves you from great pain

Prefer to watch on streaming? Plot Delas is one of Univer Vídeo's free titles: create a free account and open the podcast page, with every episode of the season.

What viewers are saying

"I'm grateful to the Plot Delas team. It helped me a lot in what I'm going through right now."

"It helped me a lot. I watched it twice."

"Wow, as a trauma therapist, I can say you covered many survival mechanisms that served people in the past but today need to be recognized, embraced, integrated and released, making room for a life well lived in the present."

If you watched it, leave your comment on YouTube and tell us which character spoke most to where you are right now.

Don't miss anything

New Plot Delas episodes arrive every Sunday at 5 p.m. (Brasília time) on the Univer Vídeo YouTube channel and in the Univer Vídeo catalog. To follow the story of Judah, Messala, Ester and Iras, watch Ben-Hur, A Série, exclusively on Univer Vídeo, and see the available plans. Content That Does Good.

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