Content Warning: This blog post discusses suicide, depression, mental health struggles, and bereavemnent. Reader discretion is advised. Please take care of yourself while reading, and step away if needed.
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Forty-two years ago this August, our family was torn apart by my 26-year-old sister’s decision to take her own life. In August this year, our troubled son-in-law died by suicide. I can’t write about all the devastating grief, overwhelming confusion, and unbearable hurt. There are no words. 

What I need to say is that the most frightening aspect both times is my distance from faith and my anger with God. Both times I imagined God there in the room watching, having the power to intervene, and turning away, leaving us with this unimaginable pain. God is all powerful and all knowing. Where was God in those horrible moments? God had the power to intervene and did not.

I try to stop myself from going down this road because my tragedies and pain are not special in the big picture. God sees little children in cancer wards, refugees in camps, abused women, accidents about to happen. My intellectual faith tells me God is not capricious, saving some and not others. I resist ever saying God saved me or watched over my children. Mothers far “more spiritual” than I have lost babies and spouses and friends. Today at church a friend hugged me with tears in her eyes. She is watching her husband die slowly from incurable cancer. 

Maybe I struggle so because I have a musical subculture that tells me God will keep me safe. In Sunday School, one of my favorite songs was “Safe Am I.” My heart lifts when I hear “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” and “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” Both Ruth and Ryan were loved sparrows of great worth who needed a hand one lonely, heartbreaking day. Christians around me like to say, “God is good all the time.” What happened? 

I cannot picture God there, in the room. Then I cannot picture God next to me either. I find it difficult to pray or find comfort in scripture. Grief is in my daily habits. Nick Cave, Australian author and musician who lost two sons, says, “Grief is all things reimagined through the ever emerging wounds of the world. It revealed to us that we had no control over events, and as we confronted our powerlessness, we came to see this powerlessness as a kind of spiritual freedom.”

What I hold onto is Romans 8:22 “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now” (Revised Standard Version). If creation is groaning and in travail, then pain and sorrow are no surprise and far beyond our comprehension. Trying to find reasons or find value of any kind is unfathomable. Creation is not limited by our intellectual reasoning and emotional capacity. Brokenness extends far beyond our families, our towns, our life circles. Expecting joy is an act of faith, but we are part of the brokenness and no amount of faith or spirituality can protect us from immeasurable grief.

Intellectually, I  know God shares my sorrow and walks alongside me even when I don’t like my life. I have not been desperately sad for forty-two years. Time helps and moments of grace bubble up when I least expect them. Since Ruth died, we’ve had two babies and nine grandchildren. The expanse of my joy matches the depth of my sorrow.

My faith, however, isn’t the same. I live more tentatively and I speak to others cautiously. Everyone has a scar. Scratching open another’s scar is unkind. I allow my friends and family to doubt God. I’m there again, like I was 42 years ago, but I believe I’ll come back to God and joy.

In the meantime, I know there are friends praying for me. Our friends in church and friends from past lives are holding us up. I have no doubt that God is listening to their cries on my account. Our family loves each other. I see glimpses of God in the fruit trays, notes, and visits. Even though I struggle to pray, I am comforted by a friend’s text, “I prayed for you on my walk today.” Hugs without words stir a bit of healing. Sunshine on the prairie behind our house reminds me that beauty soothes.

I resonate with the words of Alison Kraus in  A Living Prayer:

The way is dark, the road is steep
But he becomes my eyes to see
Strength to climb, my grief to bear
The Savior lives inside me there.

What also helps is my firm belief that God is tender and loving. I believe God welcomed these hurting children. Maybe God asked a few questions, but ultimately God knew them and they belonged to God. I, too, belong to God. I may be struggling with our relationship, but I know God still loves me. 

Still, in the middle of the night I wrestle with God. Both my sister and my son-in-law left young children behind. I’m seventy-five; my years of questioning and doubting are relatively short. But how does a child ever understand a parent leaving by choice? How does a child accept so many years of missing a mom or a dad? How does a child accept that so many questions will never be answered? How does a child move beyond depression for their loss and break the cycle? These questions make my grief a muddy field I struggle to trudge through.

I have no answers. My heart aches for those left behind. Right now I’m much too sad to spiritualize either death. When I get up in the morning, I ask what I can do to help our daughter and grandchildren. I look for beauty and moments of joy, hoping I come back to God along the way.

Header photo by Alex Tyson on Unsplash