Muddling Through

A fellow blogger, Leah (Califmom), lost her husband to cancer a few days ago and it really struck a cord with me. I think about her often, how she is coping, how her kids are fairing, what hell she must be going through. Through her blog and the support of her friends, they took a very vocal stance against cancer and expressed their feelings rather boldly, feelings most of us would like to say, but may not speak aloud.

Whenever she would tweet about her husband, or write a post about him, she always interjected this phase or used the hashmarks. When that tweet came, simply, "he's gone", I immediately sent my condolences. A stranger sending their thoughts and prayers over the expanse of the Internet. I thought for a second about not including her tell-tail hashmark behind it, knowing people that I went to church with follow my tweets, but in the end, I did. #fuckcancer

Words, you think, as a Christian, you aren't supposed to say, but sometimes, they are the only ones that express the frustration and the hatred and the anger you really feel.

I don't know Leah. Couldn't tell you what she believes, or where her heart is, and just reading her blog, just like any other blog, doesn't give you the complete picture. I may have formed an opinion and it may have been dead wrong. Leah posted this recently Snippets in Time and you know, whether or not she believes exactly like I do, I think she nailed it right on the head with her thoughts on God.

Whether or not I admit it here (or even to myself) and I know it's not been near as hard a year as Leah as had, these past few months have been rough. Here is Leah's last paragraph though and a lesson to us all

"If this past year has taught me anything, it is that I can lean hard on my God. He can handle it all. Every priest and pastor who has counseled me along the way has said just that. The error comes in thinking that He cannot, in thinking that we have to shoulder the fear, anger, frustration, and hate ourselves. We don’t. It is not our job. God can even handle the F-bomb. You’d be amazed."

I think it boils down to, even if it is part of God's plan, which we know it all is, sometimes, the f-bomb is all we can use to describe what we are going through and I agree with Leah, I think He can handle it and He may even agree with us.