Crisis of Faith

My Sweet Michael,

It's been a little over eleven months that I have had to live without you.  The grief seems to come in waves.  There are days that I feel pretty good and then, with no warning, I just get slammed in the heart with sorrow. You still feel as real and alive today as you did before you were gone.  But now, the missing you is harder.  It's harder because I just want to talk to you.  I just long to hear your voice. It's harder because I've started to believe that you really aren't coming back.

When you left, there were things I felt so sure of.  The first thing was that I wouldn't have any regrets because we had such a good marriage.  I knew that you loved me and you knew how much I loved you.  But when I read our emails..some of which were about petty arguments and disagreements, I want to take them back.  I want to take every argument back, I want to tell you how sorry I am for being angry over stupid things.  I want to ask you if  you were disappointed with me, or if you were happy?  I KNOW that you were happy, Baby, but, I torture myself with regret over every remembered harsh word.  I know that we were just living our lives and our marriage, but, oh, how I regret every minute that I didn't just cherish  you.

The other thing I was so sure about was that I would cling to God.  That I would draw ever nearer, placing my faith and my hope in Him.  I pictured myself as a peaceful, serene widow, wiser from having lived through the fire. I felt sure that I was not going to get angry at God or pull away from him.

I never dreamed that your death would cause me to question everything I had ever believed in.  I never dreamed that May 26, 2013 would be the day that my soul began to come unraveled.  I literally knew God in my mother's womb.  I was brought up in the church, I knew God...really knew God from my earliest memories, yet your death has taken my faith by the throat.  When I need my faith most, when I need the strong presence of my God, I have been left feeling alone and terrified.

Questions that I had never considered...what if God isn't real?  What if Heaven is a myth?  What if Michael has just stopped existing?..... invade my thoughts and my dreams.  The other night I dreamed of my own death.  I watched my family prepare my funeral.  I saw my body in the casket.  Somehow I felt like you were with me. When the moment came that I realized that I was going to be buried, I panicked.  I was terrified.  I was questioning everything I knew and could see and could feel.

In Mother Teresa's recently published letters, she wrote:   (In an undated address to Jesus), "Where is my Faith -- even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness -- My God -- how painful is this unknown pain -- I have no Faith -- I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart -- & make me suffer untold agony."

She wrote the Rev. Michael van der Peet in September 1979, saying, "Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear."

On Rapture Ready, in an  article written by Todd Strandberg, the author writes:  Crisis of faith" is a term commonly applied to periods of intense doubt and internal conflict about one's preconceived beliefs or life decisions. This doubt can be triggered by a single event, or it can build up as a general sense of dissatisfaction.

  Some people think that any type of uncertainty is a sign of a crisis of faith. I would say the opposite is generally true. Someone who boldly declares that he or she has never had doubts is likely a person who was never a true believer.

But, even in this "crisis of faith", I rely on the Lord's promises.  In Psalm 23, David wrote:  

 3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of^arighteousness for his ^bname’s sake.

 4 Yea, though I ^awalk through the ^bvalley of the ^cshadow of^ddeath, I will fear no ^eevil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they ^fcomfort me.

God promised me, in His own word, that He would not leave me, He would not forget me, He would lead me with His rod and staff, like a lost sheep, back into the fold.  Even in this crisis of faith, I know that it is not God who has pulled away, it is not God who has changed, it is me who has lost sight of Him.  

I know that it was God who created me in His image.  He created all my emotions, my ups and down, my doubts.  He created my ability to feel hurt and anger and fear.  And I'm so glad that God did not place the security of my salvation on these crazy emotions.  God also created my soul, and it's  my soul that cries out to Him in this Valley of Death.  God put in me the Holy Spirit, the one who intercedes for me and cries out to God when I can't.

In Mark 9:24 the Bible says that the father cried out "Lord, I believe, please help me with my unbelief".  And I bring that plea to God.  Please, Lord, please, help me with my unbelief.  Show yourself to me and restore this broken spirit.

I love you so much, my Sweet Michael.  Don't give up on me....I'll get this right.

g

This Thing Called "Loneliness"

Dear Michael,

For 10 1/2 months now, I have been alone.  I have missed you so much.  The pain of losing you has been all I've been able to feel.  The pain has been so big that it left no room for anything else.

Yesterday, on the way to take Tru to dinner, all of a sudden, from out of nowhere, it hit me-I am so lonely!  This is a new emotion.  I'm not lonely for company.  I've been so blessed to have friends and family around me often.  People who call me and check on us, people who invite us to different functions.  I have my wonderful widow friends on my support groups that have become like family to me.  I have people who care, Baby.  But, I'm so lonely for you.

The soul of our home is gone.  I'm lonely for the one person who "belongs" here.  I'm lonely for the person who I never got tired of seeing.  The person whose presence and personality was so infinitely entwined in the very fabric of our home.

Everything broke this week.  The furnace went out, the washing machine went kaput, my cell phone, the DVR and the surge protector, all broken.  I know these are just things.  Things eventually break, but for me, it feels as if the kingdom is falling.  Remember the movie "The Never Ending Story"?  Remember how the "nothing" was invading and the kingdom was dying?  The castle was falling all around the princess and our hero had to stop the "nothing"?  That's what it feels like when things break.  It feels like I helplessly sit here and watch the life that we built together slowly falling apart, and I wonder "when will it all be gone"?  When will I look around and everything that was "us" has disappeared 

When we got to the restaurant, after the wild chase through the buffet line (trying to keep up with a very excited boy), I sat at our table and looked at the table across from us.  There sat a sweet little elderly couple. They were sitting on the same side of the table, very contentedly eating their dinner.  And the tears just fell.  I couldn't stop them.  The loneliness and the unfairness just overwhelmed me.  That should have been us...that WAS us at one time, wasn't it?  That was you and me...so happy to just be together, that we sat on the same side of the table so that we could just be near each other!

You were bigger than life, Michael.  You were everything I ever dreamed of in a husband.  You were kind, and sweet.  You were a wonderful father to our little guy.  You loved our family more than anything.  You were one of the greatest athletes, some of your high school records have still not been broken.  You were my perfect dance partner, you sang to me, you wrote me sweet notes.  We had so much fun together, we enjoyed each other's company.  You used to tell me that I was a fun date.  And most of all, you loved me.  You loved me when I wasn't always so easy to love.  You held me up when I needed  you, you were proud of me, you made me feel beautiful and invincible because  you believed in me. You accepted the love I gave to you as a precious gift.  How can all of that ever be replaced?  How does a heart ever recover from losing the love of a lifetime?

I pray so hard, Baby.  I pray that God will heal my broken heart.  I pray that God will help me to be a better parent, that He will lead me on the path that He has set before me.  I pray that God will comfort me and that I can somehow find the strength to put Him first above my love for you, and above the pain of losing you.

I was talking to your mom the other day and I told her that I was trying really hard to live again, to get up and do healthy things and to try to find the purpose God has meant for me.  And she told me "Yes, you have to do those things, because you know, he's not coming back".  Oh, Baby, my head knows that, but my heart?  My poor heart is still so in love with you and just can't believe  that you are never coming home!

I am doing my best to stand on God's promises:
Psalm 38:9  O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you.  
God hears my hurting heart.  He sees my tears and He loves me.

Isaiah 53:4  Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;
As much as I hurt, I know that the Lord is bearing the heaviest part of my grief and my sorrow.

And most importantly, even though I'm lonely, I know that I am not alone:  Isaiah 41:10  Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

I know that it's going to take the love and strength of my Jesus to survive this, Baby.  Because of Him, I have hope that I will see you again and that this loneliness is only for a lifetime, but NOT for eternity.

 I love  you and I miss you, Michael.

g