Hope in Death part 2

While 'death' is an interesting topic in itself which I plan to write more about, the main reason I write this post is because early in the morning on June 14th, my Father died at the age of 63. Everything I believed in was shaken. (Please, do not offer condolences) To be honest, I was mad at God. Even though I don't care to admit it, I blamed God often in the months following my dad's death, and wasn't able to crush that anger until recently. I felt as though I had become a different person, someone who was hopeless and despondent. Several questions plagued my mind:

Why would a perfectly just, loving merciful God take someone away before they can say good-bye? Why would a perfectly just God let someone suffer so much and not act? Why would a perfectly loving God give no assurance that your loved one is alive and well in the afterlife, knowing full well the grief it causes?

And why would a loving God kill my dad when I was getting married in less than a year, and my brother was going to have his baby a month later?

I am writing this because I want to help those who go through these same emotions, the same emotions I experienced. Although these answers may not be the same for everyone, these are the things I experienced after the death of my dad:

You can call me crazy, but nearly all of my siblings had dreams of my Father saying goodbye and that he was well even though he wished he could stay. Almost identical every time. You can think whatever you want, but it happened... and strangely enough a barber I talked with two months before my Dad died had shared with me that the same thing happened to his family.

Not only that, but the night my Dad suffered a second heart attack he said he saw people in white in the room with him. He was almost sure they were angels so he started trying to ask what the people were doing to methodically figure out which ones were there and which weren't. Most people in hospitals wear scrubs, not white. Anyways, he said he saw the room begin to disappear like the matrix and it was Godlike.

So why does God let people suffer? I think the answer might be that evil exists and is real, partially because we let it exist. We actively participate in the spreading of evil by not spreading good. It was man that started the progression of sin.

I've met some genuinely amazing people throughout my life, and they've all taught me something very similar. We are meant for much more than we give ourselves credit. We are not meant to sit ideally by as the world turns to sin; we are supposed to act! Preaching fully convinced that the word of God is real-- that Jesus is behind our backs and in our hearts.

As to why God takes people at times that make it difficult to accept, I think the answer to that question is simply that there is a time and place for every thing in this world. We may not understand it now, it may be uncormfortable but as a wise theologian says, (I honestly don't remember who said this) God does not want what is comfortable for us, he wants for us to be holy, like He Himself is holy. Every moment is an opportunity for good or evil, and God puts us in the circumstances where we can do the best. In the end we will all die, and that day, we will be transformed.

"There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance... God has made everything appropriate to its time, but has put the timeless into their hearts so they cannot find out, from beginning to end, the work which God has done. I recognized that there is nothing better than to rejoice and to do well during life." 

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-4, 11-12)

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