By kaka Lucas, 10/31/2022

I did not want to attend the “Night with God” vigil with the young people in the diocese. There was no specific reason. However, I was forced to participate in the vigil by my two ‘loving’ brothers who made sure that I had a responsibility that I couldn’t escape from.

Standing at the back of the hall, my eyes took a walk from one corner of the room to the other, from one seat to the next, and it was evident that someone was missing. One person was missing from the crowd; and even though she may have wanted to be there, she couldn’t be there.

Standing there, a friend came over and said to me, “I miss Aunty” and this affirmed my thoughts of her absence.

Prior to going to Mass the next morning, I encountered my dwarf brother Steve. I asked him to walk with me as we headed to the venue for mass and his response was, “I am not on good terms with God, I am angry with Him”. Wow! I was left speechless.

On my way back home, I tried to come to terms with these two events and the only sentence I was able to utter was “I do not understand.” That is all I could say when I reflected on how much I missed Aunt Sandra. That is all I could say after contemplating what my brother was going through.

I was not mad, but her absence still hurts me. I was not mad either because Steve had a beef with God. I just did not understand ‘WHY’ bad things happen to good people. I wanted to be honest with God.

I was also experiencing moments of desolation, but with time, I have learned to talk to someone and let it go. Other people may express their anger towards people or things. Just like them, we sometimes are afraid to be angry at God, so we end up blaming other people, situations, or circumstances.

This is the imagery I would use to better understand ….

Let’s all imagine being in the same place with someone who is powerful enough to save those that we love. Someone so mighty who can help us through whatever difficulties we are going through at the moment. Being human, we start shouting at them. “If you were here my mother would not have died.” Then you turn on them and hold their shirt/blouse, beating their chest with the palm of your hand. As we do so, we break down, a river of tears flowing from our eyes down our cheeks to our chest….and boom! The very person we were yelling and screaming at, the very person whom we were slapping their chest with our hand, turns to us, pull us closer and wraps their hands around us and pulls us in to their warm chest and begins to weep, too.

That is what the story of Lazarus’ sister reminds us of…. Mary told Jesus “Master if you were here, my brother would not have died” Mary on the other hand fell at Jesus’s feet. And Jesus wept with her.

As much as we take it onto ourselves to have a beef with God, God is never mad with us. He is there silently, especially in our grieving moments, and in our period of desolation. He’s always present with us, and he understands.

He knows how hard being human is.