Quote Two: Where is God?

Quote number two reflection under way. Here is my second quote I have found reading A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis:

When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be--or so it feels--welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.

Only on page nine, when I first read this all I could say was a big, fat, gigantic WOW.

JUST WOW.

Not simply because I could relate to what Lewis was saying, but because he writes in such a way that I have not found in any author grief-counsel authors. He is abruptly honest, doesn't sugar-coat the situation and doesn't make grief something it's not. Grief sucks.

Lewis just doesn't take into consideration when he wrote the book, but also the question: "Where is God through all of this?" And I totally agree. God shouldn't be taken off the hook by the weak argument that He gave us free will. According to Christian theology He is still God, still all-loving and all-powerful. He still has a chance to stop our suffering, but chooses not to.

Before all of this happened, when I found out the news that Jake had physically left my life here on earth, I had been extremely spiritual and in-tune with God. I prayed everyday, sometimes more and wrote in my journal specifically telling God about my day and trying to get closer to him. My intentions were good, pure and holy.

At that time I felt welcomed by God, and was absolutely sure He loved me, wanted to best for me and appreciated our unique friendship. God was one of my best friends, someone I could confide in and tell anything to. Boy did that change.

It's not that I don't think God exists-- I most certainly do. If I admit that there is evil and unjust acts in the world than I am claiming that evil in turn exists. But if God was nothing, how would I know right from wrong? How would I even know what evil was?

So, no. I do believe in God and in no way am I an atheist. My issue lies in God's credibility of being all-just and all-loving.

God allows bad things to happen to us, and allows terrible and horrific things to happen in this world. But why? Why does he let children starve on the streets, or mothers get raped and beaten in front of their child's eyes? Why does he allow people to starve to death and natural disasters to wipe out entire cities? My biggest example would be the Holocaust of the 1930s/1940s. How could God allow that to happen, so many innocent people killed and tortured for no reason?

I don't care what God's plan is and how he goes about it with free will. Torturing a child is wrong. Watching it and allowing it to happen is wrong. Ask anyone. If you saw a seven-year-old girl being brutally attacked on the street and did nothing about it, you would be just as bad as the person who was beating her. Because you did not stand up, and make known that what was happening is unjust. That is exactly what God does, he sits around and lets it happen. And I honestly cannot make sense of it.

Here lies my issue-- if a God who claims he loves us so much he knows the exact number of hairs on our head, yet he lets these same beings that he loves go through so much, I don't want to have anything to do with Him. If God is really like that, I don't want anything to do with Him. I don't care if I'm going to hell, I don't care if I am not being obedient. I think in this area he is wrong. And although I am blinded by earthly dimensions, there is no possible way anything could be worth just watching a child getting beaten to death.

I never doubted the existence of God, I just doubt his credibility and relevance to my life.

Quote One: "No one told me grief felt so much like fear."

As I stated in my last post, I will be blogging about my first time reading "A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis. So far, the book has been compelling and down-right honest. I will be a taking a quote per blog post to reflect and try to make sense of Lewis's words. Well, here we go. First quote:

"No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing." (Lewis pg. 1)

This was the first line in the book; the first couple sentences. And yet, while I was reading this for the first time, not even flipping the first page yet, I already felt a connection with Lewis. Because although I'd hate to admit it, I have felt the exact same way. Lewis and I share something; we share the inevitable reality of grief.

This quote immediately took me back to my initial stages, the week I found out that Jake died. I couldn't eat, could not sleep, and yes, the sensations felt exactly like fear. I had an adrenaline rush that I didn't know what to do with and thought I was going mad.

I was constantly searching, and looking over my shoulder for something, even though at the time I hadn't the slightest idea what. Fear consumed my life: from not wanting to talk to old friends to spending the entire rest of the summer locked in my room.

Fear only has power of we let it. And boy, does it clamp its latches on me. Truth is, I am afraid. Even to this day, over three years after my beloved Jake left, I'm still scared shitless.

I am scared for putting myself out there, learning to depend on other people and learning to let other people in. Before Jake, I had always been more on the introverted side regarding my feelings. But after he left, it kicked everything into high gear. For me, it is so incredibly hard to trust people.

It's scary.

It's terrifying.

And I know exactly why.

I trusted Jake with everything. From sharing my hopes, dreams and aspirations to letting him know how I felt about him. He earned my trust-- and deserved it. When he died, all of the mutual foundations of trust and confidentiality were shattered. I no longer had him to confide in and respond to my cry of help, and the reality of grief became as real as ever.

What scares me is not that something like this will happen again. I know the odds of having another loved one die so young is very slim. What I am afraid of, though, is that I might by chance put my heart into someone's hands again it be carelessly shattered. I honestly don't know if I could go through that again.

I see what grief is/was doing to me. It paralyzes the victim in a timeless trans that one cannot escape. It paralyzes the victim with fear.

When a loved one passes away, the feeling is a horrific one like no other. When you receive the news, and it brings it to your knees, that's when you know what true love means.

I hate it when people say, "Stop being selfish for wanting (a loved one) back, they are happier now and are in a better place."

SO WHAT?

Jake died at fifteen years old, and I'm not being selfish. I feel agony and pain for not only me, but for him as well. He never got to graduate from high school, get his driver's license or go to college. He never got to go to prom or receive his acceptance letters for the universities he applied for. He will never get married, have a family of his own or get his first real job.

Jake is stuck in time, just like me. And that scares me.

Nineteenth Birthday

Like an artist or a musician, writers cannot control when their creative juices flow. It could be in the middle of the night, early in the morning or in the middle of a class.

Usually, for me, I find myself waking up during a calming dream, or have to stop my homework to try to relive the memories, faces and smells of Jake through my writing. The descriptions of the words, how I place them in a sentence and the minute details are vital for me to remember. And I have to.

Today marks my nineteenth birthday. Woop-de-do. As the years keep rolling on by, the birthdays matter less and less to me. Not because it's not fun knowing I'm getting older, and not because I'm scared either. It's because after Jake died, I put my life into perspective. Does it really matter if I count every single birthday? I need to count the minutes, hours and seconds I have here, because Jake only had fifteen birthdays. And I've had nineteen.

It very much saddens me how my best friend cannot be here to celebrate with me. I often wish he could come back just for a second, just so I can see his face, hear his laugh, to know that I am not completely crazy. That I am not merely making fantasies up in my head. That this actually happened. This was real.

I picked up a book from the library a couple of days ago, titled A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. A guy who used to run a retreat program at my grade school contacted me shortly after Jake passed and recommended that I check it out.

Then, I was at a point where I didn't want to talk to anyone, was a recluse in my room and shut everyone out. I was not at the point to read a book, much less breath. Now I think I have come to better terms with the passing of my best friend, and am able to go to school, think and breathe.

There isn't one particular reason I went to the library to search for the book, I just think something inside egged me on to listen what this retreat-guy had to say.

The book is about C.S. Lewis, writer and poet, who of which wrote the Narnia series. His wife (called in the book, H.) died of cancer unexpectedly, leaving his two sons and him alone. The book is C.S. Lewis's own diary, sharing his questions, frustration and cry for help when no one could save him.

While I was reading, I began to think this is so much like my own writing. Blunt, honest, straight-to-the-point and heartfelt. He isn't afraid to be mad at God; he isn't there to please others by saying "everything happens for a reason," because that's not what he believes. He's confused, devastated and lonely and has no problem showing it.

Argument after argument, point after point, there is not one thing I haven't felt that C.S. Lewis was feeling. Last night, while reading in my room, I almost felt a little embarrassed as if he was reading my own journal aloud.

There are a couple of particular points that hit close to home. It'd like to share a quote per post and really delve into what C.S. Lewis's words mean to me in the context of my own grief with Jake. I am hoping this exercise will allow me to explore why Lewis and I have so much in common, as well as help me to learn some new things about me and Jake's relationship.