Faith

My husband and I watched The Other Woman a few nights ago. (I will be talking about events in the story, so if you want to see it and don't want spoilers, don't read on.) We realized from the previews we had seen that it was not only a story about infidelity, but also of loss. In the story, the main character, played by Natalie Portman, ends up having an affair and marrying this man. They go on to have a daughter together, and three days later, the baby dies. She does not handle the loss well, and she becomes very angry with everyone around her. It is very obvious that she does not have any type of religious beliefs, and it got me wondering. How does one handle the loss of a loved one when they don't have their faith to fall back on.

My husband and I had a son named Emerson who was stillborn. What got us through the pain of our loss, was knowing that he was up in Heaven, and that God had a plan for him. We relied heavily on our faith to get us through our grief. It has been ten years, but we still talk about him with our girls regularly. We still celebrate what would have been his birthday. And we all know that when our time here is over, and we go to Heaven, we will finally get to meet him. Yes, we all had questions about why it happened to us, but there was never anger or resentment. I think our marriage even grew stronger after going through that together.

I just cannot understand what our journey through the loss of our son would have been like if we didn't have our faith in God to carry us. I had never taken the time to think about what it would have been like if we didn't believe in God or in Heaven. I don't know if I could process it without feeling angry at the whole world. I doubt our marriage would have survived if we both had that pain and anger and grief surrounding us with no answers as to why it happened of what would have happened to Emerson. Watching that movie really opened my eyes to just how awful our experience could have been. I am thankful that we both shared that faith and were able to lean on it to get to where we are today.