Doubt and Sorrow

My Pawpaw passed away earlier this week. Devastated would not be an understatement. He has always been Jesus to me even before I believed in Jesus.

I posted on Facebook that his passing ignited doubt for me about Heaven as an afterlife. And the truth is, that doubt hasn't really been resolved. All I see when I think of him now is laying in the ground in a hot ass suit in the hot ass Southern July sun, beside Ann, beloved wife and mother. I don't know who Ann is but she rests close enough to my Pawpaw that I noticed her there when we went back to visit him on Thursday after they'd buried him.

A few of my friends were quick to assure me of the existence of Heaven and their belief in it.  I suppose the words "I have doubts" from a former Atheist are unsettling. I can see how my friends, who love me and care about me and who have followed this journey, would be quick to reassure me in that moment because they maybe fear I could go back to the Big A in a moment of pain.

Rest assured, that is not the case.

Never has Jesus been more alive to me than He is now. Never have the words from God been more audible than they are now. Never has the presence of a spirit guiding me and comforting me, been more real.

I am devastated.
I am sorrowed.
I still have questions.
Still have doubt.

But God still keeps showing up.

In a song.
In a torrential downpour on the afternoon that we put my Pawpaw in the ground.
In a precious moment from the mouth of my precious gremlin.
In the sun shining on my front porch.

I looked for Him in a glass of wine to drown my sorrow at 10am but I didn't find Him there. One day I'll learn that lesson for good.

For now, I'm okay with questions and doubt. I think God is okay with it, too. A god who is threatened by those things is a very small god that fits in a very small book. The God I know is bigger than all those words.