Easter Reflections: Finding Faith, Losing Faith

It’s interesting how the loss of a child affects each individual so differently. From the way that people talk about their child and the loss, to how they grieve and respond to others, there is nothing cookie cutter about this experience.

With Easter a week away, I’m thinking about colorful eggs, bunnies – and faith.

I once met with a woman over coffee whose baby had died and in sharing her story with me she spoke of how the loss brought her closer to God. She was a Christian before her child passed away, and in the aftermath she found a great deal of comfort and grace in processing her grief through her faith.

There are also people who find faith for the first time after traumatic experiences. Or to the opposite extreme, lose their faith entirely.

For some, loss unites them with their beliefs or opens up new aspects of spirituality. But this is not always the case.

I hope I do not offend anyone, but this is my story:

I personally found my faith challenged after Zachary died. When I learned my son would not live, about a month and a half before his birth/death day, I prayed and prayed and prayed. My husband and I read the bible and talked to pastors. We held onto the belief that even if we had faith as small as a mustard seed that God could perform a miracle.

When Zachary died I came to question everything I had once believed so ardently. Ask anyone I went to junior high and high school with; I was a Jesus freak. Yet, in the testing of my faith I realized I had accepted many things blindly, without conscious deliberation. While I did not grow up in a Christian family, I had jumped into the religion as a teenager looking for something tangible and real.

The silence I experienced from the Christian version of God, after Zachary’s death, made me rethink everything. I no longer call myself a Christian although I do believe in something spiritual that ties us all together. I feel it, like a creative spirit; some may call it the Holy Spirit. I do not want to label my new experience of spirituality as I am still figuring it out for myself.

What I have learned on this spiritual rollercoaster, like an Easter egg hunt, is that searching for the truth is good, not a sin. We never know what exactly we are going to find in the end – but that’s okay. It may be a green egg or a blue egg or the Easter bunny himself.

It is healthy to question and search to understand your beliefs.

Acceptance and grace are key when talking about faith.

I am very happy with my spiritual life these days. It makes me feel alive. This is another lesson I have learned since meeting Zachary that I don’t know I would have discovered any other way – and I’m thankful.

 

What has your journey been like?

Did you feel it pulled you closer to faith or away from it?

How are you celebrating Easter weekend?