Where is God?

by Becky Garrison


Becky-GarrisonFellow Southern writer – and one of my idols – Flannery O’Connor got it right when she said, “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” Children of alcoholics tend to lose their parents in increments. It’s not like a car crash, where – boom – they were here one minute, and now they’re gone. Forever. Just like that. And it’s not like having a parent with a sympathetic terminal illness, and people come over to your house with homemade casseroles and coffee cake, trying to support you during this “difficult time.”

Over time my parents slowly started to lose little pieces of themselves. As they got worse, the shame of my family’s demise drove my extended family and all their friends to seek higher ground, leaving us black sheep to forage for ourselves. Bit by bit they started to go. I don’t know at what point my parents’ souls actually left their bodies, after which, I pray, they were welcomed into God’s loving arms. But it was pretty clear that by the time we buried them, there was nothing left.
Intellectually, I got the concept of free will and how our actions have consequences. But couldn’t God have made an exception and given my dad the will to kick his addiction? Why did God seem to be taking a dirt nap as I buried my father and mother within an eleven-month period? This isn’t how a sixteen-year-old’s life is supposed to go. And if my dad had to die, why did he have to do it on my birthday? Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen. Not. If my pain were all there was to the story, I would join the New Atheists in decrying those who believe in an imaginary buddy. But my story didn’t end in death, but with a new life.

Right before my father’s funeral, the priest took the Garrison kids aside. “Even though your father couldn’t help himself, he was there for countless others who were lost,” he whispered to us, using that voice of professional compassion that’s designed to soothe without getting too involved. “I’ve been getting calls for hours from people saying how much the Reverend Dr. Karl Claudius Garrison Jr. changed their lives,” he added.

At the funeral, the priest commanded us to love each other regardless of the personal cost. “Even though love brings pain, it’s that one-on-one connection that makes us human and separates us from the other animals. So, as long as we’re human, that means we have an obligation to keep on living and loving, loving and dying.

When I was sitting there drenched in death, his words didn’t seem to be providing one lick of spiritual solace. His whole spiel sounded like one of those stock sermons that priests deliver when they don’t know the person. They’re torn between their professional obligation to act “pastoral” and their innate desire to avoid the dysfunctional family in front of them.

Still, somehow, those words stuck to me. For reasons I cannot explain, my teenage blues never morphed into clinical depression or worse. I survived the loss of a close friend who committed suicide during my senior year of college, and I lost all but one of my grandparents by the time I turned twenty-five.

Yet, the words by some priest I only met once and didn’t care for one whit (mild understatement) said something that enabled me to hang on to life like some demented, rabid pit bull. In hindsight, I can see the hand of God working though this unknown priest and a few other kind souls. Their words entered into me like tiny specks of sunlight, illuminating what otherwise was a dark, cavernous pit that stank to high heaven.

Reading Henri Nouwen’s The Wounded Healer started a lifelong journey of learning how to take my childhood hurts and not only be healed through Christ, but use myself as an example to help heal others. Thanks to the works of ancient and contemporary saints such as St. John of the Cross, St. Julian of Norwich, and Gerald May, I’ve received a miraculous gift of grace. Through their personal struggles, these spiritual guides gave me hope and taught me it’s OK to question what’s up with God. After all, the Almighty can handle it. He is Lord of all, you know.



Excerpt from The New Atheist Crusaders and their Unholy Grail, by Becky Garrison© 2008 and published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. (www.thomasnelson.com).

Among her writing credits include work for The Wittenburg Door, The Ooze, Outreach, God’s Politics Blog, and The High Calling.(www.beckygarrison.com)

Becky Garrison is the author of The New Atheists Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail, Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church, and Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church. Among her writing credits include work for The Wittenburg Door, the God's Politics blog, The Ooze, Outreach and The High Calling.