God, here I am. Almost 10 months since Mom died. 15 months since we knew something was wrong. I am still heavy-laden. And I wonder how I am supposed to go on. I’ve learned it’s possible to live without Mom, but there’s a deeper question. My heart is not a virgin anymore. I see the devastation that is possible. Horrific has a shape now. It is no longer abstract. I see what is possible. I see the potential losses. I see the hurt of the world. And my heart is breaking more. How can one endure this?

I see in my pain and my questions how You are so near. This is uglier than I thought it could be, and none of it seems to scare or surprise you as it does me. You know the worst. You know the depths, where I have not even touched. I see the ways you have worked in me through the pain. I see the foolishness in my heart I did not see before. I see the brevity of life. I see the importance of considering death. I see the insignificance of things I used to think mattered more than they do.

Did you have to work that through pain? Isn’t there another way? I don’t understand how you work, God. Why must you use pain? Even while the results are good, I cry out. This rips at my very being. My tears keep coming. How much longer will you have me in the fire?

You count each tear. You are so connected to me and to my grief that you know how many tears I have cried. How can you care that much about me? How can your heart break with mine? When no one else understands, you understand to your core. When I am alone, you are with me. When I can’t take more than one step at a time, you have gone before me and hold me up. You’ve provided for me in countless ways. I tried to keep a list and I know I can’t remember every person, every help, every practical need you’ve supplied in this horror.

None of this feels good. Trying to grieve well in a culture that avoids pain is another burden on top of the burden. Wasn’t the ugliness of her cancer enough? Wasn’t losing Mom enough? Wasn’t seeing the damage being done to our children and being powerless to stop it enough? Yet you thrust me into a place that does not know how to grieve. And it’s loneliness on top of loneliness; pain on top of pain. I need people, yet often they push me away from healing in their attempts to help. They have all meant well, God. Yet often they hurt. Yet sometimes they help. Did C.S. Lewis ever start a grief sanitarium? I would join one if he did. One tends to feel crazy if one attempts to grieve well.

How can life be so beautiful and so ugly at the same time? How can sorrow and joy intermingle so intimately? How will you one day divorce the two? Will every tear really be wiped away forever? To believe in you is to believe in the strongest magic we cannot comprehend. It really is the fairy tale of all fairy tales. If you really are who you say you are. All our greatest desires, all things beautiful, all our deepest hopes and aches are met in you. You truly are who we were made for.

There is so much I don’t understand, and will never understand. You are not waiting for me to understand. You are teaching me to grieve. To cry. To laugh. Help me figure out what life is about. What my life should be about now. Living for myself simply isn’t worth it. You see all the stories we tell. The good ones are the ones that echo self-sacrifice and loving others, because that’s your character. I’m still alive, so you must have a purpose for me. Let’s get on with it. I want to be with you.