I'm going to admit to something really big. Something hard to admit. Something I have had a difficult time understanding.
I've lost some of my faith. By faith, I mean my Christian faith.
I've been Christian since I was young. In the last ten years, my husband and I have made our faith a much bigger priority in our lives. We introduced our toddler to church while I was expecting our second child and have been consistent church-goers since.
However, at least for me, something changed in the last few years. I was a strong Christian before I lost my sister. I can now safely say that while I am still Christian, it's not the center of my universe. I had an epiphany the other day on why this has happened.
If I am to believe everything in the bible, then I know for a fact that I will not see my sister in heaven. As far as I know, she was not a believer. If she was not a believer, then she is not in heaven. On the day she died, my pastor tried to reassure me that I may not know for sure the level of my sister's faith at her death and that perhaps our God is a more merciful God than we will ever know. It brought me comfort at the time and I've clung to that hope.
But in the 4 1/2 years since I lost Trisha, I have slowly felt my faith slip away. I have gone through anxiety and depression, a lot of anger, I went through counseling, I struggled to find more meaning in my life, I have prayed to exhaustion. But still, no matter how much I turned to God, I felt my faith diminishing.
I am really struggling with the concept that I will never see my sister again, here on Earth or in Heaven. I miss her with every ounce of my being. She was an incredible sister, and is sometimes the only person I want to talk to on my darkest days.
But my faith offers me NO comfort in those moments. If I don't have the promise of an eternal life with her, then how is God supposed to comfort me in my deepest moments of grief? Do I want to continue to believe in God when it is offering me little comfort to get through the worst thing I have ever experienced?
I want to regain my faith, believe me I do. I continue to sporadically attend church and when I am there I am engaged. My husband is one of the strongest Christians I know. I live in a faith-centered community. But I also want to have hope. I want to see my sister again.
