An open letter

Dear God,

My brother-in-law's grandmother passed away yesterday morning... But I'm sure you knew that already. My brother-in-law is having a hard time because his family is split in two by the quarrel, and one side is mad at him for letting the other side know about her death. It is kinda crazy. When I visited her this last June, I remember grandma tearing because she was caught in the middle of the two sides and because she missed Connecticut so much. She had to sell her house and move her life halfway across the country. I hope heaven is a bit like Connecticut, for her sake anyway.

We are sorry that we are crazy and petty and selfish and quarrelsome. Please forgive us. But even so, I have something to say that is making me peeved.

While I was concerned about how the two sides of my brother-in-law's family were going to be reconciled, my mother was concerned about something much larger and far beyond our power or scope. Just as she walked away after our conversation, she turned to me and asked: "But was grandma a Christian?"

And then I suddenly detested the burden you gave to us evangelical Protestants. It is difficult enough to solve the problems of life, why do you burden us with the fate of those who are dead? Why does the eternal fate of a soul lie in our miserable, pathetic, and foolish hands? I hate the testimonies and sappy songs about "Why didn't you tell me when we were alive?" I hate the guilt-trips; I hate the uselessness of prayer against another person's will. If you were so powerful and so loving and so just, why couldn't you do it on your own?

You know that I love my non-Christian friends. I love my Christian friends who have non-Christian family members. Some of us have prayed for those we love for years, but Jesus himself said that it is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. If I cannot imagine being happy in eternity if those I love were languishing in hell, can I imagine a God, whose very name is love, happy in a similiar situation? And if you were not happy in eternity, how could you be God, if it is necessary that your will be done?

I am sorry for thinking these things, but writing them down makes hardly any difference, since you knew about them to begin with. I will still pray, because I still believe. So please be with my brother-in-law, his family and my sister in this time that they may find peace in you; please bless my friend J and grant her rest and healing, but above all, that she may know you too.

In Jesus' name,
Amen

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update: going to church takes the vim out of me and makes me remember that right after Jesus made the camel reference, he also said that with man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. so i take the burden back.

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