Dennis Armstrong, the Sutter Hospice social worker who comes by after you’re 24 hours “in service,” asked me, “Does your father have a faith or belief system?”
It’s complicated. You see, Dad says conflicting things. On the one hand, he says that he wishes he could believe in God but he doesn’t. On the other, he has talked about seeing Mom after he dies. And about how God let Mom down when she was dying. “I’m afraid,” she said at one point in her illness. If there is a God, Dad wondered, how could he abandon her in her moment of need? I’m sure he was also flashing back to losing my sister, Midge, to leukemia at four years old. He used to talk a lot about the pain of losing Midge. It’s even harder to understand God’s hand in that one.
My beef with God is different. I understand that it’s really hard work getting born into this world; I have the mental scars from back labor to prove it (thanks, Maddie). I don’t think it’s fair to work so hard to get out of it. Why do people have to become feeble and go through pain and discomfort before they make their exit? Did God figure that people would just hang around too long if it was pleasant at the end, and end up overpopulating the world?
I realize my own relationship with God is a little iffy right now. I usually talk to God when I go to bed. I thank Him for the amazing people and things in my life, and I ask him for what I want and need. Releasing Dad has long been a prayer of mine.
But I’m a little bit pissed off this morning knowing how tough things are for Dad right now. I’m working on it, God, but I really don’t understand how this is such a great plan.
An old family friend, Bruce Wheeler, shared a favorite Bible quotation of his: Rom 8:31 “If God is with me who can be against me?”
Are you with us God?
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Hi there,
It’s funny, because when my mom was dying and was sick I was SO ANGRY. I didn’t understand why God did what He did, and why He took some people “too early” and left others to languish.
You’re right – why can’t we all die peacefully in our sleep? If God loved us, it would seem He’d want us to go painlessly and quietly. But like you said, we work hard to get into this world, and just like we should in every day life, we must fight to stay within it. But it’s not really the fight that matters; it’s the attitude you take during the battle. I have to say that it totally is unfair to have to suffer to get out of this world and into the next one, but I kind of think that is the point.
Someone once told me that she felt God took people “early” who He felt finally figured out His plan for them…and just “got it”. The people who last forever, it seems, are the ones who still have yet to find His path for them. The bitter end might be God’s one last test. If anything, that mindset gives me a little more hope than the bleaker ones that occasionally cross our minds :).
I think some people have a hard time believing in a God who can allow such painful and evil things into our world, but many religions have good and evil built right in. I think it’s because you can’t know good without bad, and you can’t appreciate beauty without sin.
I like your post :). Thanks for sharing!
Best,
Sunny
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Love you, Betsy. Your writing puts me there.
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