My Faith is Strong, But I'm Struggling With Worship

I realized Sunday, in the midst of what turned out to be one of the best weekends in ages, that one of the hardest places for me to be lately is church.

It's not so much that I'm mad at God, although I am and He's letting me work through that, but that to worship freely I need to let down the barriers that help hold me together the other six days of the week.

Don't get me wrong, I've not dodged church as a result. In fact, my church family -- especially my Sunday school "siblings" and a few close church friends -- have been people I can turn to when I have an earthly need. Although I struggled with going to church that first Sunday afterwards knowing that the sincere hugs and condolences would be hard, I've gone every week.

Sunday school class goes fine. I probably don't share as much of what I'm going through on a day to day basis as I once did -- if anyone is familiar with the pain of loving Ethan, it's them -- but I can still contribute to the lesson. Being with a group that supported me for so long is good, even if we don't talk about it.

It's the worship, the music and song that gets me. Sometimes it's the sermon as well, where I just can't wrap my mind around how all this earthly pain ever stacks up to anything good.

When it comes to the music, it's probably the same root cause that has me switching from listening to KLOVE on my radio in the car, to playing CDs. At first I blamed it on the few commercials (especially those for Teen Challenge, an addiction treatment program that Ethan refused to attend), but I've realized it's because I cannot control what they are playing or even skip a song that strikes too many chords in my heart.

At the same time, I'm finding it easier to deal with in the car because it doesn't matter if I cry as long as I can still see the road. I've come to terms with the lyrics of a lot of songs that cause me pain and reached the point that I can generally sing along even if I simultaneously cry. If I find I cannot handle it, I can push the skip button or stop singing, which allows some of my defenses to come back up.

In fact, the first week that I started getting out, I spent most of my time in the car crying, no matter what my destination. While I was eager to get out, I found those alone times with Christian music, which frankly is all I've listened to in years other than my old stuff, were tough. Even if I had the girls in the back, I would cry between point A and point B, then put myself together enough to go on.

I've found that same problem carries over into the worship part of church service. I'm not sure if that means that playing the music in the car is a worship, which at times it does feel like, or not, but it does leave me struggling to get through the start of our church service Sunday mornings.

I cannot hit the skip button if the song the choir or congregation is singing causes me pain. I cannot change the station. I cannot turn it off.

When the pastor encourages us to celebrate our Lord in our worship, I stand there with my jaw locked trying not to cry, or perhaps losing the battle and just hoping I don't break down completely. Depending on the structure of the service, it may be all I can do to get through to the end having exhausted my emotional reserves early in the process. Although I do listen to the sermon, sometimes the lesson has a hard time taking root.

Because to be quite honest right now, I'm struggling with my relationship with God. It's hard to be close to someone you're angry at and I don't understand why any of this had to happen. Reminding myself that I'm not supposed to and that the world is an evil place where bad things happen only gets me so far.

Through some terrible paradox, while I'm angry at God, I have to depend utterly on my faith in Him to be able to make it on a day to day basis. I have to have faith that there is a reason for pain -- mine and Ethan's and all the other pain that I've become much more intimate with in the last five weeks -- or else I would sink into utter despair.

That this life is just a short part of our existence and the things that happen here are passing is hard to accept when mortality is all I know. Even accepting that, the need for pain and suffering and what impact it can have on our souls still baffles me. The Biblical lessons about how we endure trials here converting to treasures in heaven just don't satisfy my need to understand what's happening now.

I don't think church can help me deal with these things so I guess church may just be tough for a while.

I know these are issues God and I have to work out on our own in long, mostly one-sided conversations with me doing the talking. My answers some in brief flashes of insight, visions that might be dismissed as daydreams, the words of people I don't really know that without this pain I would never have touched, the ability to make someone else feel less alone during the hardest times of our lives.

My answers come in faith and hope in things I have not seen and won't see at church, but that I nonetheless believe in and which keep me going seven days a week.

A Month Ago, My Life Changed

con·do·lence noun \kən-ˈdō-lən(t)s also ˈkän-də-\
: a feeling or expression of sympathy and sadness especially when someone is suffering because of the death of a family member, a friend, etc.

I hate the word condolence, or condolences. No matter how the dictionary defines it, it has to be one of the most meaningless words in the English language to me, perhaps because it is a word that I would never use.

It may be a proper sort of noun, but to me it's proper in that unfeeling, keep my distance, I don't really know you sort of way.

Sympathy isn't a lot better.

If you are sorry for what I'm going through, then simply say it. Don't look for pretty ways to make it less painful. Tell me you're sorry. Although I've received some beautifully written sympathy cards, I've found the meaningful part is the "I'm so sorry" scrawled above the signature.

A month ago, I would never have given a thought to these things. A month ago, I didn't know the rollercoaster of my life had already jumped the tracks and was sailing through the air on its way to a heartbreaking crash. I didn't know that while I thought I was traveling a familiar road, there was actually black ice and everything was going to spin out of control.

I didn't know that about noon the phone would ring and I would learn my son was dead.

Now, a month later there is still an unreality to it all.

Next to Ethan being gone, the thing that disturbs me most is not knowing when. Even if the autopsy gives us answers as to how or why, I'm not expecting an answer to that relatively meaningless question. He's gone and I learned he was gone on Dec. 15. But when did he die? Why didn't my mother's heart feel that he was gone?

As I've slowly regathered the unraveling threads of my life (most of them anyway) over the last two weeks, I'm still troubled by that question. I'll be heading off to one of the activities that was a normal part of my life and I'll think, "The last time I did this, Ethan was alive." That thought is quickly followed by, "The last time I did this, I didn't know Ethan was dead."

That's such a horrible question mark to have hanging over my life. I don't even care as much about why -- why to me is dextromethorphan, whether it was an accidental overdose, chronic overuse that caused organ failure, a seizure from drug use that finally pushed his brain and heart over the edge. As far as I'm concerned, I know what killed him. It was the drug that took a healthy teenager and turned him into an addict with seizures and physical damage and all of the emotional pain that goes along with addiction. Knowing what finally couldn't stand the abuse any longer really doesn't matter to me.

Having Dec. 15, 2013 as his death date and knowing it's not right bothers me beyond all rational thinking.

Then I have to wonder how many other families of addicts wind up carrying this same baggage through their lives. A phone call that tells them a beloved was found dead, not that they died with someone nearby who at least gave a damn, they were found dead. How many people with a network of loving, caring family members push everyone away, don't answer the phone, and isolate themselves for so long that they die alone and are found dead? How many families never even know that they should have gotten that call because the isolation pushes the addict so far that they leave everyone behind and are not only out of touch, but surrounded by strangers who don't even know who to call?

A month ago, I didn't know my life was about to change, but in reality, it already had. Sometime in the days preceding that fateful phone call, Ethan had stretched out in the floor of his apartment, folded his legs like he was apt to do, and simply slipped away with no earthly fanfare or outcry over his going. Because he had spent so long extricating himself, bit by bit, from so much of what went on in our day-to-day lives, we didn't immediately notice he was gone.

But I know it now and I've known it every day for a month. I've felt the hole that the loss of his physical presence has ripped out of my life, the knowledge that this side of heaven I'll never hear his voice, see his smile, or feel his arms around me. I try to cling to that vision of freedom, a happy smile as an angel released him from his pain and addiction, but that's not really enough. I'd like to say, just one more time, but that wouldn't be enough either and that would be a lie. I'm human and still bound by tasks I've yet to complete and a path I have to finish walking, and it may be selfish, but anything short of having him here to walk it with me to the end isn't enough.

So I suppose Dec. 15 will have to do. A month ago today my life changed.