It's amazing how quickly things change.
I felt the need to post this. Mollie gave this speech to her church:
People come to God in the strangest ways. It never ceases to amaze me that tragedy can warp people's lives so differently. The same tragedy that brought me to God has driven others too far into their own grief to see God's presence. For me, to tell the story of my faith is to tell the only story I know how to tell anymore: the story of Daddy's death. When I heard he had died, i was in the middle of breakfast at the Majestic with two friends. The whole occurence is surreal. I remember hands on my back, arms holding me, kisses on my cheeks and head, but everything else is black. In the time it took to get to the hospital I was aware of nothing other than the desire to be close to my mother. I felt no physical sensations, no awareness of the car or motion or my body. when I finally reached my Mama's arms, I can't even describe the wildness of our grief. Being with my family in those first instances was surrendering to the wildness, the absurdity, the shattering heartbreak that took away our sense of time and motion. That heartbreak was a deep journey for me. I experienced my core, what Eudora Welty calls the shrine of our secret self. IN those moments of being closest to myself and most honest with myself, I found the presence of God. in that deep loneliness and fear there was an absurd sense of comfort, an absurdity that could be nothing but the grace of God. That was the beginning of two journeys: a life's journey, the journey to seek the realization of that truth, and the more immediate journey of facing the impossible task of life without Daddy. God's physical manifestation swept me away in that immediate journey. Despite undertaking the scariest reality of my life, I had physical presence to comfort me. Literally every person I loved most in the world came to my side over those first days. friends came from North Carolina and Florida and just down the street. Glenn came. God's presence was alive in my house. Without so many people to keep it going I'm still convinced the world would have just stopped. those people, that God sent love, reminded me to eat and drink water and laugh and cry. I was nourished and kept alive by grace. As I travel through my life after the immediate shock and heartbreak, I see that my awareness of God's glory has not faded but rather intensified every piece of my experience. The color of the sky or autumn leaves, the sounds of a song, the hug of a best friend have become so much more glorious and precious after my experience of God and self.
My response:
I need to think more. I need to sort out my feelings. Several things about that have me crying. The fact that you indirectly mentioned me as a proof of God's presence. How I feel so far away from God. I just have so many things running through my head. I've been trying to figure out the reason why I've been hurting so much and why you've managed to get through the worst of tradgedy with a smile. I've done so much introspection and found no God there the way you did. I've yearned so much for my relationship with Him to heal, yet I've been stubborn against it because of my nature and now out of habit. I just don't know how to feel about God anymore. People ask me what it would take for my anger to abate, and I honestly don't know. Right now I don't feel angry. I just feel abandoned. I feel like He's above me watching. I used to feel like He was right here with me, and often like His arms were around me to comfort me. I haven't felt that feeling in months. No matter how hard I tried to visualize it. I'm so joyful that I brought you some form of help, but I can't see why I can't help myself. And why no one else can help me. I'm so incredibly confused.
People come to God in the strangest ways. It never ceases to amaze me that tragedy can warp people's lives so differently. The same tragedy that brought me to God has driven others too far into their own grief to see God's presence. For me, to tell the story of my faith is to tell the only story I know how to tell anymore: the story of Daddy's death. When I heard he had died, i was in the middle of breakfast at the Majestic with two friends. The whole occurence is surreal. I remember hands on my back, arms holding me, kisses on my cheeks and head, but everything else is black. In the time it took to get to the hospital I was aware of nothing other than the desire to be close to my mother. I felt no physical sensations, no awareness of the car or motion or my body. when I finally reached my Mama's arms, I can't even describe the wildness of our grief. Being with my family in those first instances was surrendering to the wildness, the absurdity, the shattering heartbreak that took away our sense of time and motion. That heartbreak was a deep journey for me. I experienced my core, what Eudora Welty calls the shrine of our secret self. IN those moments of being closest to myself and most honest with myself, I found the presence of God. in that deep loneliness and fear there was an absurd sense of comfort, an absurdity that could be nothing but the grace of God. That was the beginning of two journeys: a life's journey, the journey to seek the realization of that truth, and the more immediate journey of facing the impossible task of life without Daddy. God's physical manifestation swept me away in that immediate journey. Despite undertaking the scariest reality of my life, I had physical presence to comfort me. Literally every person I loved most in the world came to my side over those first days. friends came from North Carolina and Florida and just down the street. Glenn came. God's presence was alive in my house. Without so many people to keep it going I'm still convinced the world would have just stopped. those people, that God sent love, reminded me to eat and drink water and laugh and cry. I was nourished and kept alive by grace. As I travel through my life after the immediate shock and heartbreak, I see that my awareness of God's glory has not faded but rather intensified every piece of my experience. The color of the sky or autumn leaves, the sounds of a song, the hug of a best friend have become so much more glorious and precious after my experience of God and self.
My response:
I need to think more. I need to sort out my feelings. Several things about that have me crying. The fact that you indirectly mentioned me as a proof of God's presence. How I feel so far away from God. I just have so many things running through my head. I've been trying to figure out the reason why I've been hurting so much and why you've managed to get through the worst of tradgedy with a smile. I've done so much introspection and found no God there the way you did. I've yearned so much for my relationship with Him to heal, yet I've been stubborn against it because of my nature and now out of habit. I just don't know how to feel about God anymore. People ask me what it would take for my anger to abate, and I honestly don't know. Right now I don't feel angry. I just feel abandoned. I feel like He's above me watching. I used to feel like He was right here with me, and often like His arms were around me to comfort me. I haven't felt that feeling in months. No matter how hard I tried to visualize it. I'm so joyful that I brought you some form of help, but I can't see why I can't help myself. And why no one else can help me. I'm so incredibly confused.