posted
For some reason or another, this topic has been on my mind a lot recently.
I'm 22 years old and have never had to deal with the death of someone close to me. I haven't had a friend die. The closest relative of mine to die was a Great-Grandpa, but that was when I was 4 and I didn't know him really well.
While I was on an LDS mission in England I taught many people who had lost love ones. I told them time and time again that they would see those who have passed on after this life. I would say this hoping it would bring them some comfort. Sometimes it did, most of the time it didn't though. They would still call it "unfair" or "it wasn't his time to go" or "he was a good person, he shouldn't have died." I even talked to an 85 year old woman who stopped believing in God because her 90 year old husband just died from a heart attack, "but he was a great man how could a loving God take him!"
I guess what's bothering me is how I'm going to take it when someone close to me dies. I've noticed people will generally do two things when this happens. Either they will pull closer to God, or they will completely turn away from Him.
I'm not really worried about turning from God, but I've seen some people who I thought were very close to God turn around and curse Him after a tragedy that hits close to home. How will I react when I have to go through this?
For you here who have had to deal with death, how has it changed your perception of God? Has it at all?
Sorry, this was just something I had to get out of me. Like I said, I've been thinking about it a lot recently.
posted
My religious beliefs were greatly affected on the day my mother died when I was 12 years old.
I was never incredibly religious to begin with and I tend to think that given time I would have eventually come to the same place, it would have just taken me longer. The day my mother died my certainty of a god being out there watching over us died with her.
Are you worried about the existence of an afterlife or about how you see god after you suffer the death of someone close to you?
Posts: 459 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Now, I've never had a death occur in my immediate family, but I'm only 18 years old, and already all of my grandparents have passed on. I wasn't incredibly close to any of them, so I was kind of emotionally distanced, plus I was still pretty young and unable to deal with human relations, let alone death, when my last grandma died, but I think that if you truly have an understanding of the Lord's plan for you and the whole world, then death is something that can bring you closer to God. I understand some people's reaction to pull away, but I think that with real understanding and the able assistance of time passed, one can actually come closer to God.
My uncle died a couple of years ago. He was in perfect health. Three days later his son died of the Honta (sp?) virus, a totally freak thing. Now that family can look at it one of two ways. A total cooincidence and evidence of an uncaring God. Or perhaps there was work for both of these men to do in the afterlife. Perhaps the death of my uncle was neccesary to welcome his son to the life after mortality. True faith in God will lead them to the second belief, and the knowledge that God has a purpose for us.
Posts: 42 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think when you go through the death of a loved one, there are two reactions: the part of you that is the "religious" knows what you believe and is comforted in its grief. The "natural man" part experiences the natural reaction: anger, fear, what-ifs, guilt, all those feelings that you experience while grieving. It's hard sometimes not to let the natural man overcome the religious part of yourself, and when weakened by the grief of a loss, it's especially hard. But it can be done. I think support is key.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wow, this hits close to home right now. A friend of the family died in a car accident yesterday. I hadn't seen her in at least four years and we were never more than aquaintances, but it's still hitting me kinda hard. We grew up together. Nobody that I've really known has ever died before. I keep thinking about her family and how absolutely horrible this must be for them.
I never realized how empty the idea of no after life is. I'm not frightened by the idea that when I'm dead, there's nothing left. I figure that I won't be there to care. But the idea that other people I know would be truly, irrevocably gone is very scary. Thinking of my family friend makes me WANT to believe in an afterlife, because it's so painful to think that that was it. If somebody close to me died, I wouldn't be suprised if I suddenly converted to a belief in the afterlife and the theism that that seems to imply.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't blame God one way or the other. I lost two grandparents at different times when I was younger. One to cancer, the other to a heart attack. I lost a good friend of mine two months ago to a lung infection. Losing my grandparents was hard, but they were old, and in some ways you have to expect it will come, in the case of my one grandmother, we knew she had cancer, and was in a hospice, so we knew for sure it would happen any time.
In the case of my friend, he was 19. I'm 21. Losing him was very hard on many levels. Part of me wanted to be mad for the loss of someone who could have contributed so much to the world around him. Another part of me was fearful for my own mortality. The loss of loved ones does funny things to the mind.
In all cases I never blamed God, nor did I take any comfort from him. I've never thought of God as an active player in our mortal lives. When my grandmother died, the same one I just mentioned, I blamed myself for years, and eventually let it go, knowing (or hoping) she was in a better place now. Personally, I think it's best just to leave God out of the equation when it comes to death, his realm is the ever after. (just my personal beliefs).
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I never blamed god, I just found it hard to believe in him after facing my mother's death.
It was never a matter of blame for me, it just made me wonder, "if there is a god out there, why did this happen? What did I/she do to deserve it and why now?"
I gave that plenty of thought during those times and the answer grew more and more apparent to me the more I thought about it. The god *I* believed in, the kind and just being that protected the good people and tried to make the world a better place, simply didn't exist. If he existed, it wouldn't have happened, that's just how my beliefs worked.
I am still open to god's existence, I just don't think it's the god that I used to believe in.
quote: Are you worried about the existence of an afterlife or about how you see god after you suffer the death of someone close to you?
Rico, It's not that I'm worried about the existence of an afterlife. I don't doubt that there is one.
Like I said earlier, I've seen people who I thought were extreemly close to God reject Him. I just don't know how I'll deal with it when it happens to me. I'd like to believe my faith will become stronger. I realize that you can't answer how I'll react since 1) it hasn't happened yet, and 2) you don't really know me.
It's just something that I needed to talk to someone about.
quote:but I think that if you truly have an understanding of the Lord's plan for you and the whole world, then death is something that can bring you closer to God. I understand some people's reaction to pull away, but I think that with real understanding and the able assistance of time passed, one can actually come closer to God.
As a human being, I don't make the claim that I will ever fully understand God's plan for me.
My brother was in a fatal traffic accident three months ago. When he died, my immediate reaction was to ask why--despite the fact that he had been very, very unstable for a long time. Losing someone you love a massive shock, no matter what the circumstances are. If I didn't have faith in God, I know the questions would have be a great deal worse. I'm grateful not to be overwhelmed by depression and anger. As it is, I try to ask for willingness and openness to God's will when it is difficult to accept.
I'm not sure if this makes any sense at all.
Posts: 516 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
My brother died a few years ago in his 30's. I've dealt with it, mainly by sharing the story with others, but I can't really talk about it well in this context. I can say it didn't impact my belief in God.
A few months after my brother died I found an elderly neighbor I was being friends with and thought she was still alive because she seemed to still be there, even though my eyes could obviously see her body wasn't alive. I have no question there is life after death because of the experience. Maybe I was going loony. I like to tell myself I was sane (and still am).
Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
As a hospice nurse, I've attended and pronounced many deaths. If you have no belief in the afterlife, that experience will change you. It is almost universal that as people approach death, particularly those who are dying slowly, awareness grows about the "other side". The dying person's spirit may wander there briefly and then come back. And people who have passed before may visit on this side. How do I know? My patients have told me, again and again.
I don't know where this afterlife is, but it is awfully close. Kind of like if you twist a different way, with the right awareness, you can see it. The dying can have a foot in each world, seeing me and talking to me, and at the same time, seeing a dead relative and talking to him.
Death is only tragic when it comes before you've had a chance to complete your work in this world. Otherwise, as an inevitable part of life, it is no more tragic and unfair than being born. They are both parentheses framing life.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:While I was on an LDS mission in England I taught many people who had lost love ones. I told them time and time again that they would see those who have passed on after this life.
You really taught this? I mean, you taught they would be reunited regardless of the beliefs of the person who died and the person you were teaching?
Do LDS believe that everyone is reunited with loved ones in the afterlife and that everyone winds up in the same place regardless?
Edit: I hope my questions don't sound contentious - I'm just curious. For example, what if one person were baptised in the LDS faith and the other ones wasn't? Would they be together in eternity?
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I remember that I missed my great-aunt's death by minutes--a family member who was with her called to tell me to hurry to the hospital, which I did, but when I arrived she had passed.
I was allowed a few minutes with her body in that room with the door closed. It was one of the most sacred experiences of my life. I truly felt she was there with me. There was a tremendous feeling of peace there. Now, this was an experience where she'd lived a full life and had suffered for the past 9 months w/ a devastating illness, so her passing was anticipated and even welcome. Why she had to suffer so might have raised some questions in my mind, but her death did not.
My father is now 81 years old and in poor health. Not dying, but not "running around the block" either, as he puts it. He's got emphysema and asthma and really bad arthritis, and life is hard for him, but as I watch him get closer to the "exit" rather than "entrance" end of his life, I can see a purification process occurring. I know I'll miss him terribly when he's gone and I hate to think of what my mother will go through. (assuming that's the order based on their current health, although of course you never know.) But I think I know my own faith well enough to know that my dad will be experiencing joy where he goes and despite my tears and personal struggles, I'll be at peace.
Well, that was totally about me. I guess because I've thought about the same questions you are asking and these are the answers I've come up with.
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
My mom and I both lost infants. She drew closer to God, I turned away. You don't know what will happen until it happens. Welcome to Earth!
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote: For you here who have had to deal with death, how has it changed your perception of God? Has it at all?
Not so much changed...I had kind of believed in a "clockwork God" for most of my adult life, but losing a child solidified that for me. I pray for God to comfort people- which I believe He can do, sometimes by making His presence known, and sometimes though other people- but I no longer see any point in praying for healing, or safety, or the like.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I couldn't help thinking after I posted this morning God saying to ?, ala Stinkoman, "Are you asking for a Challenge?"
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think this thread is important because it asks you to "prepare for the inevitable" which affects all life, and that is death. It may sound morbid, but since every living thing dies, it's part of life.
I've asked myself how I would react to various person's or people's death in my family. In the last few years I lost a few grandparents that I was close to. Thank God I haven't lost anyone in my immediate family (Yes thank you God for those blessings) but I have a view that drives my wife crazy.
I don't mourn. It's not that I'm sad that they died and I won't get to see them again (in this life) It's that I'm so sure I will see them again and they are in a much better place. I really do look at it as a happy vacation for them.
I adhere to a belief that the afterlife is sooo GOOD that if we knew a millionth of what it truly was like and felt like, we'd all kill ourselves to get there.
That's where the dead are for me. The only mourning to do is really for ourselves and what we didn't do to make them feel our love for them in this life.
I think it is healthy (although hard and yes morbid) to ask yourself the theoretical regarding the possible mortallity that surrounds you. I believe the only thing that asking yourself those types of questions will do, is make you cherish their own and your life more and be prepared if by chance or design that death comes to touch part of your life.
I know, I'm weird about death (that's what my wife says).
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
First: I'm not posting this for sympathy, and I'd really appreciate it if nobody gave me any hugs or sympathy or frownies or condolences... or anything, really. Avoiding that sort of thing is precisely why I haven't mentioned it on this forum so far.
Okay, then.
My father died in June. I was already an atheist, though, so beyond being irritated by people constantly talking to me in religious terms (though really it was partly that I didn't want to be talked to by much of anyone at all) I didn't drift closer to or further from theism. I was uncomfortable with the nature of the memorial service, but I knew that while it wasn't what dad wanted it was what the attendees needed. People came from pretty far away for it, so it must have been important to them.
My mother seems like she might be moving closer to god. She's a theist, specifically an Anglican (I'm ostensibly Anglican as well, having been baptized in the River Jordan). She is becoming somewhat close to the minister who presided over the memorial (who's new but really nice) and has been going to church since the memorial (because of the new minister, I think). She and I don't discuss religion much, though, because on a couple of occasions she's offended me pretty deeply with passing comments about agnosticism being a "phase" or my father "turning me into a heathen..." so I'm just basing this on my impression. She's certainly going to church more, but I can't be certain that this translates directly into moving closer to god. I know very little about my mother's relationship with god, just as I knew relatively little about the specifics of my father's beliefs. My parents tended to let me make up my own mind about those sorts of things, though I certainly had plenty of exposure to religion.
From a larger perspective, personal loss is a more immediate version of awareness of the horrible things that happen to humans every single day. I'm not a theist, but it might be that some theists wrestle with the question why a loving god would permit suffering more deeply when the suffering and loss is their own.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm also LDS, and my mother died when I was 20. I have very specific opinions about death and religion; here's a thread about it from a while ago.
But to sum up quickly, religion is comforting for the eternities, but it does not take away the need to deal with the grief, and the need to learn how to live without them now. This life isn't supposed to spent just waiting around for the next one, and doing so is a good way to stay miserable. Dealing with parents dying is something almost everyone has to do eventually (and for those who don't, their parents have to deal with a child dying.) It will always suck, and it will always be hard, and the Lord is there for us during it, but he won't take away the difficulty and pain of it. It's okay to cry - for years, if necessary. It's sad when people die, and for me, religion mostly says that it's a little sadder for us than for them.
I think the Lord knows that, too. (KQ, I disagree with your thesis that it is the natural man that grieves. Sadness for the loss of someone you love isn't something to resist against.)
quote:D&C 42:45
45 Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die,
Having said that, my personal opinion is that my mother misses me.
---
In answer to the question of how it changed my perception of God, it did...strip away any illusion that I was a princess living a charmed life. I'm not sure that that humbling wasn't a good thing. It did come as a shock - everything else in life was pretty dang good up to that point. However, although I may have felt it, I didn't intellectually believe that God was a sugar daddy and I know that crap happens in every life and we are not promised otherwwise, so the shock and grief led more to an evaluation of myself than a re-evaluation of God.
posted
I have never had any human close to me die, but I've had to deal repeatedly with the loss of a beloved pet. In some ways it seems like it would be harder than the loss of a parent because you feel that you could've protected them better or that you should've been there in the end, that you should've known somehow what to do. It doesn't affect my lack of belief in a g0d or an afterlife, but it does make me more protective of everyone I've got left.
Posts: 1751 | Registered: Jun 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Belle, sorry to confuse you. I taught people that you could be united forever, not would, as I said in my post.
But I do believe regardless of your faith that you will at least see your loved ones after this life. You may not be with them for all eternity, but you will at least see them. I hope that makes sense.
quote:Death is only tragic when it comes before you've had a chance to complete your work in this world. Otherwise, as an inevitable part of life, it is no more tragic and unfair than being born. They are both parentheses framing life.
I just wanted to mention that what Tante said was very poignant.
That said, my grandfather, whom I was very close to, died in January. I don't know how I reacted to it, because I haven't reacted yet.
I don't think you can predict how you'll react when it happens. It happens, and you react. And then you know.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote: Katharina wrote: I know that crap happens in every life and we are not promised otherwwise, so the shock and grief led more to an evaluation of myself than a re-evaluation of God.
Wow, that really pretty much sums up the way I've dealt with some hard stuff in my life--not death, but definitely pain.
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
My mother died pretty close to a year ago, now. The loss has not made me more or less religious. I don't blame God, and I don't particularly seek comfort from him either.
But I'm also the first to admit that I probably haven't totally dealt with it yet, either. Sometimes I think of all the horrible old hags in the world who have tortured or abandoned their children and I wonder why they live when my own dear mother does not. However, I believe we all have our place in the universe, and hers just isn't here anymore.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:In answer to the question of how it changed my perception of God, it did...strip away any illusion that I was a princess living a charmed life. I'm not sure that that humbling wasn't a good thing. It did come as a shock - everything else in life was pretty dang good up to that point.
I think this is true to an extent, though I still feel as though I've been very lucky and that things in my life have a tendency to work out (that's not to say that I don't have to work them out myself, that's part of things in my life working out, it isn't carte blanche to be lazy) despite my father's death. Because really, all things considered, I can't complain about the state of my life. With the exception of dead people who I wish were alive, things are very good for me by just about any measure I can think of.
I guess what I'm saying is I think you're right about this kind of thing dispelling the notion that one leads a charmed life, but it doesn't preclude feeling lucky and being grateful for the luck. The difference between you and me in this case is that I don't number god among the list of beings to thank. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
What's funny is that I'm not sure I did place all the credit for my charmed life on the Lord. It felt...presumptious, because crediting the Lord with the things I got would mean he liked me more than he liked people who didn't get them, and that didn't seem quite right.
I remember when I got my scholarship (sheer fluke - full scholarship when I had a B average in high school) that I jokingly credited "the scholar gods" for it, having in mind a metaphorical Mt. Olympus of learning. I cringe about that now, but it was about the only thing that made sense.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:KQ, I disagree with your thesis that it is the natural man that grieves. Sadness for the loss of someone you love isn't something to resist against.
I didn't mean that, either. I may have been imprecise. What I meant is that all of you grieves, but one part reacts with love, while the other part reacts with anger, etc. and that if the angry part overcomes the part that's reacting to the grief with love, that's when the drifting away from God is likely to happen.
I hope I said that right. I agree that grief is necessary, that it's something good because it comes from love.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
