Finding God in Crises

 

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I’m reading a novel by Jodi Picoult called The Pact. It’s about a boy and girl who grow up as neighbors, are inseparable from childhood and become teenaged sweethearts. The girl begins feeling smothered by the relationship and, seeing no way to avoid disappointing the boy, his parents and her parents – who were also best friends - she becomes desperate to the point of taking her own life.

She enlists the boy to help her shoot herself and he becomes the principle suspect in what authorities believe to have been a homicide, not a suicide. The families are torn apart and inconsolable. They become enemies. The book does a good job exploring the dreadful world of teen suicide and its effects on families.

It’s hard to imagine losing a son or daughter to suicide. Often accompanied by the bitterness of guilt and anger, it must be among the most devastating events that can occur in one’s life.

Last week, I mentioned Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was imprisoned and executed by the Nazis in 1945.  In his Letters and Papers from Prison he described how some of his fellow prisoners underwent conversion, desperately reaching out to God to save them from the horrors of prison and probable execution. Bonhoeffer worried that these conversions lacked the sincerity and commitment necessary to sustain faith.

It may be true that human suffering, physical or psychological, is not a good motivation for conversion, but belief in God is often decisive for people who go through such trials. I always feel compassion for people who have no apparent relationship to God who go through life-changing, calamitous events. I write “apparent” because you never know about the quantity or quality of another’s faith, no matter the appearances.

As odd as it seems, I am also saddened to read newspaper obituaries that make no mention of a religious connection to the deceased. How unfortunate if the person didn’t experience the joy and comfort of God’s company in his or her last days. How burdensome for the person’s family. I understand that a funeral in a church doesn’t mean the deceased had any quality relationship with God. It’s not an automatic thing. But it’s pretty safe to assume that the person at least had the opportunity.

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This, by the way, is written by a guy who has his doubts about God and religion, but who believes despite the doubts. And it’s from a guy who values his relationship to God, who banks on it, who would be lost without it. Being able to sit quietly and talk to God – and even occasionally feel a response – is worth any struggle with uncertainty.

As I’ve mentioned before, when I’m lost for words in communicating with God I often turn to the psalms, those poem/songs written by believers 3,000 or so years ago. It’s amazing how these ancient writings can speak to the emotions of people today. The psalms’ authors pour out their hearts to God. Often the psalms reflect people in crises, some apparently on the verge of despair. Many display the natural fear of death and resistance to its inevitability.

Consider Psalm 89 (in Catholic Bibles), shortened here to conserve space:

O Lord, you have been our refuge

From one generation to the next.
Before the mountains were born
Or the earth or the world brought forth,
You are God, without beginning or end.

You turn men back into dust

And say: “Go back, sons of men.”
To your eyes a thousand years
Are like yesterday, come and gone,
No more than a watch in the night.

You sweep men away like a dream,

Like grass which springs up in the morning.
In the morning it springs up and flowers:
By evening it withers and fades.

 …Our life is over like a sigh.

Our span is seventy years
Or eighty for those who are strong.

…Make us know the shortness of our life

That we may gain wisdom of heart.
…In the morning, fill us with your love;
We shall exalt and rejoice all our days.
Give us joy to balance our affliction
For the years when we knew misfortune.

Our lives are ships on a capricious sea. We sail along, living and loving life. But storms can hit us unexpectedly and some of them can be so severe we don’t know how to cope. It may not be the best time for a “conversion,” as Bonhoeffer wrote, but if God is in your life, you have an invaluable gift.

Faith is hard, but not as hard as having none. It can get you through any crisis, even those as horrific as losing a child to suicide.