Forgiveness: God

Forgiveness is a word people hand you like a pamphlet. They press it into your hands and walk away as if they have done something. They never stay long enough to hear how the word torments a parent who has lost a child.

On the day of the Great Conjunction, I wrote, “I had an emotional meltdown. Later, I had an anxiety attack. Then I spent thirty minutes in a heated, loud conversation with God. It was a hard day… I am glad I was alone for the hourlong drive to the farm. This gave me time to calm down and compose myself.” I glossed over the thirty-minute heated and loud conversation with God. That occurred during the hourlong ride to the farm. It was loud, like 120dB playing Skillet Radio on Spotify, particularly Caleb’s favorites like Monster and Comatose. It was also loud because while the music shook my truck, I was yelling at God.

I was on my way to see one of the true marvels of His creation, to not just derive joy from the splendor but to give Him glory for its beauty. And I was furious, confused, hurting, and taking it all out on Him.

Furious. Confused. Hurting.

The world will give you permission for two of those. The third one, the fury aimed at the Almighty, makes people nervous. But I was not asking permission in that truck. I was just doing it.

Caleb’s life, as spectacular as it was, had less value than his death.

That sentence should not be true. It should not even be thinkable. But in a world where God operates as sovereign, where He could intervene and chose not to, where the greater good apparently required my son’s absence, that is the math I am left with. I do not accept it. I do not reject it. I sit with it the way I sit uneasy with taxes. The framework provides needed services, and the framework hurts.

A few minutes later I was at the farm, looking through a telescope and loving the Creator who brings moments of joy through astronomy. We were at peace with each other.

I cannot explain how both of those things are true within the same hour. I am not going to try. That gap between fury and peace is the space I live in with God now.

It took me years after Caleb died to see what was actually happening in those moments. I found someone who can hear the worst of it and not judge. He gets verbally assaulted, then reciprocates a hug. A boxing bag that can take every hit and then say, “I love that you are still here, talking, and trying to work it out.”

Some Sundays I walk into church and cannot sing. I stand there while the worship team plays and the words are on the screen and my mouth will not move. Not because I do not believe them but because some of those words cost too much that day. The Priestly Blessing makes me cringe. “The Lord bless you and keep you.” He blessed me with Caleb and did not keep him. Other Sundays I want to do nothing but sing and read the Bible and sit in His presence.

Maybe if there was a divine social media app, our relationship would be, “It’s complicated.”

In the prologue to this series, I confessed I had never written the word forgiveness across seven years and dozens of posts. It showed up in my therapist’s office and I let it slide past because I was not ready. It has followed me here, to this first door.

So, can I forgive God when I believe He did no wrong?

If He hurt me, it is within the framework of a broken world He allows to keep turning. I cannot separate His sovereignty from my son’s death. I also cannot separate His sovereignty from every moment of beauty I have witnessed since, including the conjunction I drove an hour to see on the same night I screamed at Him.

If I forgive God, then what exactly is being forgiven? Maybe forgiveness aimed at God is not about releasing Him from blame. Maybe it is an acknowledgment that I am willing to sit with Him and see where it goes. That the relationship, complicated as it is, still matters enough to stay in it.

I do not have a cleaner answer than that. I am not sure one exists.