I’ve been living without my wife for seven months now. I’ve had to adjust to a great many things, but the most trying has been my struggle with my faith over that time. I’ve been angry with God, which has consumed me at times. I’ve been angry with Kathy for dying, and I’ve been angry with myself for being pathetic.
At first I was consumed by what I perceived as God’s punishment of me. Why would he take the love of my life from me? Why did he not take me instead? Those questions made me doubt everything I’d ever been taught about God. I began to comb books on philosophy, theology, Jesus, even the Tibetan Book of The Dead. I wanted answers and I wanted them now. I wanted to know why, on Dec. 3, 2009, my wife and I had had a wonderful day that ended in typical fashion.
We lay in bed watching some TV to unwind. We talked about the play that would open the next day starring her eighth-grade drama students. She was so excited and I was excited for her. I had built sets–the word built here is used as loosely as possible–for the production. I had helped at a rehearsal earlier in the evening. We had driven home joking and laughing and holding hands.
“I’ve got a big day tomorrow,” she said. “I’m going to sleep now. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I said. She patted my hand and rolled over to go to sleep.
A few minutes later I got up to go to the restroom and noticed something didn’t look right about the way she was laying. Because I’m sometimes a little crazy, I took her pulse. It was wild and thin. She was not breathing.
I called 911. I started CPR. The next day she died without ever having regained consciousness.
So in the days that followed, I felt betrayed by God. The Emergency Room doctor told me that Kathy had accidentally overdosed on a combination of prescription medications and a small amount of wine. The combination had caused her stop breathing and had also caused sudden liver failure.
While she told me these things, I wondered what I had done to deserve God’s wrath. I also wondered how a merciful God could allow such pain and suffering. I wondered so much that I read A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis almost immediately. It began an obsession of reading about faith and reading the Bible and being afraid I would never see Kathy again if I couldn’t make myself believe in God again.
What I found in all those hours of researching grief, God, religions from across the world and from torturing myself with fear was a simple message: Everybody struggles with faith. Everybody has doubt. Everybody eventually loses someone they love.
With all those things decided, I looked at myself in the mirror. I allowed myself to be human and to have flaws and accepted that I have the best kind of faith in God that there is. I have the kind of faith that keeps me seeking God almost every day.
From these months of searching I have also found something I wanted to share those who read these words.
First, you have permission to be angry with God or the god of your understanding. You also have permission to be angry at the world. It is okay to question God, the person you’ve lost, even yourself, but at the end of it all, leave a little room for forgiveness.
Finally, I can say that I do believe in God, I am gaining acceptance of Kathy’s death, and I’m not pathetic at all. I’m just grieving.
Tags: grief, hope
Sir, I know your pain. My husband was killed in a motorcycle accident in December 2008. Thank you for your post. Have you read the book “A Grace Disguised”. I highly reccommend it.
Hello there,
You are right. it is the faith that plays the game over us. I too lost my wife recently.
Dear Kyle,
Thank you for sharing your journey. I lost my husband Dec. 13/10 and I am still angry at God. I have attended bereavement groups and read all that I can find to try to get me back to the feelings I had for God before I became a widow. I also do not understand how He could let such a loving man be taken from those who still need him in their lives when there are so many evil people that the world could do without. I know the answer is not clear now but I want to be able to breathe again and believe that God does indeed answer prayer.
God bless us all,
Alma
My husband died almost 2 weeks ago from melanoma at the age of 41. He was an atheist throughout his adult life and remained an atheist until the end of his life. I’ve always been more of a seeker, I think, although I’ve been very uncertain about whether or not there is a God. What I’m finding now, though, instead of anger at God is an incredible yearning for there really to be a God and an afterlife because I want Jim’s spirit to continue on and to be happy, and I want to be able to be with him again someday. I have no idea where this faith journey will take me, but I do want desperately for Jim to still “exist”.
Thank you all for your kind words. Sheri, I don’t know where you are in your faith journey, but I can only encourage you to keep seeking. I know this will sound wrong, coming from a Christian, but I don’t known if your seeking will lead you to God. Fortunately, mine did, but I still have days of doubt. I think doubt is as much a part of faith as believing. This may seem an oversimplification, but I’ve never opened up my head and taken my brain out and played with it, but I believe it’s there (most days, anyway). Believing is brave. It’s easy not to have faith in anything. It takes strength, intelligence and courage to have faith. I have faith because the Bible has comforted me, especially the New Testament. I’ve actually focused on the archeology, which is quite extensive. Also, there is this, because I’m a nerd: There were thousands and thousands of crucifixions during the time of Christ. Why was his so important that it started Christianity? It’s a question I keep coming back to a lot. I wish you grace and peace.