CREDOS: Angry at God — I

Michelle Boccanfuso

When my husband passed on, everything I had counted on was in a state of upheaval. I was afraid of everything. I felt alone.

I had a teenage daughter who I would be raising on my own. What was her life going to be like? What was my life going to be like? I was deeply grieving the loss of my husband. But even more than that, the mental darkness of the depression I was feeling seemed impenetrable.

I had a really good friend who patiently and consistently called me nearly every day. Frankly, she was worried about me, and she needed to know whether I was making any progress. One afternoon, about a month and a half after my husband’s passing, she called to ask how I was doing. That day, I could articulate it exactly-without any filters. I didn’t think I needed to couch my feelings in happy terms. And so I told her I was angry.

“At what?” she asked. And I remember thinking, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m angry at. It was enough I could actually say I was angry. What I was thinking seemed to violate everything I had been trying to communicate to others, “Oh, everything’s fine. I’m doing fine.”

She asked, “You’re not angry at God, are you?” And I told her, “Absolutely! I am angry at God. I am furious at God!”

Her immediate response stopped me in my tracks. She asked, “You’re not angry at good, are you?” At the moment she equated God with good, I realised I needed to think about that. Was I really angry, or rebelling against the good I hoped to have in my life?

One of the problems I was dealing with was I hadn’t realised to what degree I had framed my whole life around another individual. — Spirituality.com