Struggling with Our Faith

I have so many many things I need to write about and I don't know exactly what order to do them in, so I'm just going to try my best and apologize along the way if it doesn't seem completely logical.  Unfortunately, I'm struggling a little in the logic department right now.

I have always been the type of person whose relationship with God has been a work in progress.  From the time I was old enough to start asking questions, I've been asking them.  For the most part, I have found a lot of answers in the last twelve years and up until about four days ago, I would've said that my faith in God was stronger than ever.  Today I don't know that I can really say that.

I pray.  I always pray before I go to sleep and whenever else just feels right.  For the last few nights I haven't.  This is mostly because we wait until we are so exhausted that we can just fall into bed and go to sleep immediately.  Today I had to take a nap since I will be trying to go to work tonight, and when I went to say my prayers I found that I just couldn't do it.

I am, of course, still thankful for the good things in my life - my husband, my daughters, my family, my friends and all of the other blessings we have. It seemed, however, that for one of the first times in my life I was having a hard time wanting to talk to God.  I wouldn't necessarily say that "angry" is the exact right word for how I am feeling right now. Chris is furious and he has no problem putting that into words; I don't blame him for that.   I, on the other hand, don't even know what word I would choose for my emotions right now.

Many of the blogs that I have found in the last few days chronicle the struggles of mothers who have such a strong faith in God that they believe this whole experience has given them a better relationship with Him and who truly believe that this is a part of His plan.  Truthfully, if someone tried to tell me right now that the death of my child was part of God's plan - I might just punch him/her.  I am not, by nature, a violent person but to stand in front of me and tell me that a God I have always believed to be loving and benevolent planned for my family to suffer and lose a child...that is just more than I can bear.  I applaud the people who can believe that and, maybe, one of these days I will find the strength to believe it too.  For now, however, I take no comfort in that statement and find myself facing Square One again when it comes to evaluating my relationship with God as I used to know it.

*Now that I am done with this post, I am honestly debating whether or not to leave it or delete it.  I don't want it to be interpreted as my having lost my belief in God or turning my back on God.  I want it to simply acknowledge that, for me, this is just one small part of what I'm working through.  Ultimately, I think I will leave it because I know that other mothers in this situation will likely be having similar thoughts and if it helps them even a little bit, then I'm ok with sharing it.*