Posted on 09/08/2002 1:05:10 PM PDT by GailA
Edited on 05/07/2004 9:20:06 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Megan Weiss plans to build a house soon.
She plans to build it low to the ground, maybe even partially underground . . . so no terrorists can fly a plane into it.
She plans to build it in her hometown of Dickson, seven degrees of separation from larger-than-life New York City, where last year she was working as a nurse in a big-city hospital and loving every second of her fast-paced life.
(Excerpt) Read more at tennessean.com ...
You raise some very good points and provoke some thought. I can see the validity of your explanation of why this woman has sunk into depression and doesn't find refuge in faith.
And yet that's not the whole explanation either, is it? There have been horrendous traumas all through history--this isn't the first time there has been a slaughter--and such things cause some people to lose faith while others do not. I know people who lived through the Holocaust, and it strengthened their Judaism. I also lost someone at the Pentagon, and know that her husband's faith has only been deepened. People have survived the massacres of Cambodia, earthquakes in which thousands were simultaneously killed, torture, pogroms. I guess it's as they say: if your faith can't survive testing, it's not a deep faith.
It's natural to be angry with God when life turns to waking nightmare. I've been pretty furious with Him myself at times. But God didn't make those skyscrapers fall down, and God didn't promise us that horrible, horrible things would never happen on this earth. Eventually we have to get over our anger with Him, because while we distance ourselves from Him, we're only hurting ourselves.
I'm sorry for the pontificating. I wasn't at the World Trade Center and didn't get burned in the Pentagon so maybe I have no right to say anything. Gee, I don't know how I would respond to such evil. It's just that I feel so deeply sorry for these people and I know that the only thing that heals fully and deeply is the love of God, so it makes things so much worse when people turn away from Him in their suffering.
I didn't say that. Nor did I imply that I have no sympathy with people who have suffered, since I have done so myself, both emotionally and physically. Nor did I suggest that vast trauma might not derail someone profoundly and cause him to question the very meaning of life.
"Shaken" is different than "lost," however. We can all have our faith shaken in times of agony--we may weep and wonder and feel despair. But one who loses his faith altogether, becomes an atheist and denies that God exists because he doesn't understand how a benevolent God could permit something awful to happen may have had some essential trust missing in his spiritual life beforehand.
My point is, if people just believe in God when things are going well, that's not a profound and unshakeable faith. If they can trust His ultimate good, His wisdom and mercy, even through tragedy, injustice, and suffering--that is faith. I don't claim to have anything so strong and refined. But that sort of faith is attainable, through God's grace--His word has promised us.
Sorry if we disagree on the nature of faith. All I can say is, if this is the toughest thing you've heard in the past year, you're lucky.
For now, it seems to be a struggle to put one foot in front of the other and get through each day.
Some may have been still living in the denial and bargaining stages and are reaching the depression and anger just now.
Believe me, sometimes, I had to stop and say my favorite prayer at the time when my husband died, every few minutes. It still hangs in my kitchen.
God, grant me the senrenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
and the Wisdom to know the difference.
This little AA prayer got me through a lot.
Humility is the safeguard of chastity. In the matter of purity, there is no greater danger than not fearing danger. When a person puts himself in an occasion of sin, saying, " I shall not fall", it is almost an infallible sign that he will fall, and with great injury to his soul. We must specifically and regularly pray for God's assistance and not rely on our own strength.
-- St. Phillip Neri
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