Faith

[melina]

I've always had a sort of fuzzy religious faith. I'm not a church-goer, but I do have hope that there is a higher power, and now especially I'm hoping desperately that there is a life after death where I will see my husband again and we can be together. My grief counselor is the hospital chaplain and she, of course, has faith in this.

But I can't help worrying that it won't happen after all. How do we know? For those of you that have faith in God (call him what you wil) - how do you keep this faith in the face of all we've gone through.

When my husband was first diagnosed, I prayed every day for God to make him well. But of course that didn't happen. Now I'm torn between not knowing if God exists, and being angry as hell at God for taking such a beloved husband and father. I have found no signs, no signals to let me know my husband is here - or that God is here. I feel no comfort.

Any comments would be appreciated. I just want to feel some sort of comfort that in the end - the very end - it will be all right. Because right now, it certainly isn't.

Melina

[niamh]

hi Melina,

First let me say how sorry I am for the loss of your husband, I see daily how it impacts my loving Mom as we both grieve for my Dad.

I too am not a church goer, but I've always had some sort of faith in some higher power, for me I was brought up calling that higher power God. But boy has that faith been shook to the very core now. It's easy when you just have a bad day to say a prayer and hope things get better. But when you are suddenly thrown into this world of losing a loved one to "death", nothing is that simple anymore.

I feel your confusion and I too have the same questions. Yet for my Mom she is finding praying to God gives her comfort and she looks forward to seeing and being with my Dad again as do I. Yet at the same time, I think like you what if it doesn't happen and that scares me more than I can see.

Others have all the faith and others keep me in their prayers now because I find it too difficult, I feel if God exists then he needs to come visit me and justify his actions to me if he wants my "support" to believe in him (I know it sounds mad ). For now I just think, I will let others do the praying for me.

To be honest they only way I find myself getting back to "believing" in something again is to simply look at the world, think of my Dad and the love we all shared .........that cannot simply be gone forever. I think there is too much order in the world for it all to be a scientific "coincidence" with a bunch of particles and thinking like helps me to have the tiniest belief that there is something bigger out there. I try to think that there is no way life could be that pointless, that empty and that being here on earth is really only a temporary place for us, an experience for some reason we don't yet know. Sometimes I smile and sometimes I get mad, thinking of those chats I used to have with my Dad and now I think he knows it all now, he has all the answers and I'm left with nothing but more questions.

I also read about After death communications, on and off and though I long for a real good "proper" one myself, I just think all of these people who experience feelings of their loved ones, their scent, seeing them in dreams and having the feeling it was more like a visit than a dream...........I try to focus on those things and think they cannot all be imagining the same type of thing. I try to think there is no way love and bonds can just be ended like that. I have had somg songs come on a certain times, while logicall I think yeah, my Dad is sending them...........deep down in heart, i feel no comfort because I need HIM to come to me, not send me a sign, a sign is not enough.

and the most basic of all which I don't technically understand but Einsteins theory that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change form.

So, I try hard to think that my Dad still lives on, it's is simply in a form or place that I have yet to experience and fully understand. So our relationship hasn't ended, it has simply changed and as a human being I will never fully comprehend that change. I always hate using the word "death" or "dead" because we really don't know the true meaning of the word and I think it's a very "final" word and perhaps too final for me to think my Dad is forever gone, now way.

We know the result and consequence that our loved ones no longer physically exist in this world but beyond that anything goes.

well, not sure if any of what I've said makes any sense to you, I confuse myself often, going back and forth but I think deep down somewhere I do believe we will all be together again because if I truly had no belief in that, I would not still be breathing today. There is no way all this pain is for nothing.

((((HUGS)))) and love to you Melina

xox

[Billw]

I found faith in a higher power years ago. It is something that has guided me and given me comfort over the years. It is not a conventional God that is worshiped in a building every Sunday but something I have a conscious contact with throughout the day. When my wife was diagnosed I prayed like I had never prayed before and asked that she be healed, she had the same beliefs that I did. We both had faith that things would be o.k. and they were for quite a while, faith in this power got her through a surgery, several rounds of chemo, and she lived the best life she could under the circumstances. Her condition worsened and she just could not recover, when she passed I became furious with my faith and turned my back to my higher power, I cursed God and became enraged for weeks. This was truly the loneliest, darkest time I have ever felt in my life, not only had I lost my partner that I walk the earth with, now I had nothing to turn to. Human power has failed me through the years, this power or God if you will has been with me since the beginning and is in my heart permanently and has gotten me through some pretty bad scrapes. I got back in touch after a few weeks and I know I have this faith in my life to guide me and keep me closer to my wife. When I am in gratitude for all of the gifts in life we shared together she is right here with me. She lives on in my heart and I feel her energy surround me from time to time and it feels great. I believe we will be together again in some form or another. Her spirit lives within me and I have the same daily conscious contact with her at times that I do the other power in my life, the only difference is that it is not a physical touch but a spiritual touch that I feel from her now. I miss the physical touch but I am grateful to experience the spiritual one. We will meet again someday. I had a dream about her and have been up since 3:00 am, I got up in sort of a fog, since reading your post and sharing my thoughts it has reconnected me for the start of my day, thanks for posting Melina you gave me just what I needed to start my day with. Take care.... BW

[kayc]

I have had faith as long as I can remember. My relationship with God was in existence long before I lost George, so I think that helped as it was already in place when I needed it. However, anger is a very big part of grieving and it's easy to direct our anger at God. After all, if He had the power to stop something from happening and chose not to do it, we can see Him as the culprit for this altered life we now have. Flailing our fists at Him and demanding answers seems to have gotten us nowhere. However, with acceptance, on down the road, came the quiet knowledge that God allows what He does for reasons unbeknown to me and does not require my permission in his choices. It has helped that I know HIM and in so knowing, I know He loves both George and I and has our best in mind...that is something quite beyond me to understand. It doesn't seem fathomable to me that "our best" could be his dying...but what do I know about what the future would have held had he lived. I do believe in afterlife and believe we will be together again. I do not look at "life" as merely this, what happens here on earth in our lifetimes...this is merely a part of a bigger picture, a small part. God does not require us to prove His existence, He does not depend upon our proof...but rather it is we ourselves who benefit from believing, that belief being based on faith not physical evidence. We could, in fact, have proof right before us, and we could choose to ignore it. (Being a churchgoer is an entirely separate issue from being a Believer.) I would not worry unduly about your anger with God right now...He understands and can take it. Give yourself time and see how your feelings pan out in time. In my own experience, my feelings ran the whole gamut, but my underlying faith carried me even when I did not realize it and God was there all along, even when I was angry with Him. I do not see Him so much as "the one who took George from me" as "the one who was there and is always there, even after George was gone". Back in the early stages, however, that was not the case...I think if you read all of my posts, you'll find some back there in which I was quite upset with God. I think that's quite common in the grieving process. There is nothing quite like grief to shake one to their very core!

[Marion Claire]

It is faith in God that keeps me and all my family going at this horrid time in life. Without God's help I could not survive and neither could the rest of my family. Neither losing my husband or my son made me angry. When my son committed suicide the pastor said it is okay to be mad at God at times. One daughter was very much but she got over it. I was never angry because I knew God had a plan that I just did not understand at all. Not one I liked but it was God's choice, not mine.

[Korina]

For a long time, my faith has been more spiritually based than religion based, but in the recent times before Scott's death, I was more and more unsure about what I believed. Scott was more science based and did not have any strong beliefs (at least that he would admit to). But since his death, my faith in the afterlife and that we will be reunited has grown stronger and stronger. For sure, I was and still am mad at God for letting Scott die, but I think that is more for convenience (I need something to be angry at), and I know God can take it.

Korina

[melina]

I wish I could share your faith and the feeling of comfort that comes from a sense that your spouses are with you. I still can't find that. I wonder if my feelings of guilt and the trauma of his sudden death just blocks that possibility out. I ask for comfort from God, from my husband, ask for signs, for anything that might indicate that someone is there - but I don't know what to look for. I still feel terrible grief and loss.

Melina

[kayc]

It took me time, Melina, much time, it wasn't like that right away. In the beginning I was in such shock and panic, I can't explain it, but it was a horrid time. It took time for all that to settle down enough for any other feelings to come in. It won't always feel like this, Melina, I promise you.

[Billw]

I wish I could share your faith and the feeling of comfort that comes from a sense that your spouses are with you. I still can't find that. I wonder if my feelings of guilt and the trauma of his sudden death just blocks that possibility out. I ask for comfort from God, from my husband, ask for signs, for anything that might indicate that someone is there - but I don't know what to look for. I still feel terrible grief and loss.

Melina

You are exactly right, the trauma at first made it harder to make the connection. The healing process is taking time. We are in so much pain at first that it makes it hard to feel anything else. As soon as that subsides a little (and it will) it makes it easier to feel something besides the pain and our hearts open again to the good stuff. I had been in therapy for a few visits and was starting to sort through some of this stuff when I realized it was happening. This is not a 24-7 type of thing, I have to be in the right place mentally and spiritually. I want to think some day I will be healed enough to feel this all day, once again I have to be patient with the process and try to be kind to myself and others, when I do that I have a pretty good chance. Hang in there Melina, it will happen. Thoughts and prayers........BW

[Korina]

Absolutely it took time for me to find that comfort, as well. After his death, though I tried to have a strong belief, I did not. And though I found signs all over the place (some I am sure were coincidences), my dream of Scott where I believe he came to me for real did not occur until months later. My faith has continued to strengthen with time.

Hugs,

Korina

[Daughter2010]

Our faith is shaken to the core when we experience the passing of a loved one. When we knew my dad's health was going downhill it was very difficult to understand how or why this was happening to us. I pleaded with God for daddy, as we many times prayed for his healing. I just could not quite understand why He allowed this to happen. I know we are humans, and not perfect and we are bound by physical death, but in the middle of that we wanted to be able to have dad with us.

In the middle of dad's passing we ( my family) were grateful to God for let us spend time with dad, I look back and God gave us so many blessings, my dad was fortunate to follow his dreams despite a difficult childhood. The night dad passed, felt a bit strange, but I know daddy is ok. a couple of days before his passing, he was seeing people that we didn't see. I believe he was looking into the other dimension if you will. When it is my time to go, I want my father to be there.

When it comes to faith, for me it is not a matter of being a church goer, but a believer. Years before daddy passed I experienced what is to have a personal relationship with God, getting to know him as knowing a close friend. When we experience loss, our beliefs are shaken to the core and we realize the dimension of our own mortality. We question the whys, hows of life.

I found it very difficult to pray during the first few months of my grief as I would just cry and cry and cry. But God knows that, He knows what is in our hearts and like Kayc said, He can take it, and it feels good to be able to give our burdens, and worries and sadness onto Him because He understands. I did not question my faith, but rather questioned why things like dad's passing happen to people.

Do I feel sad and miss my father? of course I do. But we have no choice but to keep going. All along my faith has carried me through even on the moments where I felt despair and loneliness. There are things I don't understand now but I know God is in control and there is a reason and purpose behind everything that goes on in earth.

Once on the radio I heard God loves us with perfecting love, and sometimes we do not understand why things happen. I am thankful for God being there yesterday, today and tomorrow.

That's just my two cents.

Big big hug to everyone here, I am thankful I found you guys too.

Have a good day.

-L