Questions Without Answers

In the spring of 2017, my husband Ed was asked to preach on the topic of bitterness. He prepared the message, but that week severe headaches forced him to cancel his commitment. Two days later, a surgeon removed a tennis ball-sized tumor from his brain.

In his sermon notes, Ed had written that bitterness is nearly impossible to self-diagnose. We can see bitterness in others, but it is easy to justify our own grudges. Ed compared bitterness to making a snowball. When weather conditions are right, a handful of snow can easily become a hard ball. When this snowball is rolled, it picks up anything around it, including more snow, leaves, and stones, until the snowball becomes too large to push. Likewise, bitterness grows and becomes deadly.

I didn't think I had a problem with bitterness. I had a happy childhood, a handsome husband, and six healthy children. I had never been abused or deeply wronged. I knew I was blessed and didn’t begrudge others for what they had.

That was before Ed was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. Despite multiple surgeries and many treatment attempts, two years later in May 2019 I became a widow at age 43. Now when I saw an elderly couple walking side-by-side at the grocery store, the pain rushed in to choke me. I had lost my dream of growing old with my husband. My three-year-old daughter might not even remember her daddy. I wanted to scream, “It’s not fair.”

I had always thought unforgiveness was the root of bitterness, but in his sermon notes Ed had written “perceived injustice or unfairness” at the top of the list of causes. What could be more unfair than losing my husband?

When my children say “it’s not fair,” they hope their complaint will change the unfairness. But my whining won’t bring Ed back. When I say “it's not fair” I'm stating that I don't deserve this suffering. I’m asking God to explain why He allowed my husband to die.

My western mind seeks to protect myself from any difficulty, but suffering is part of the human experience. Living in American freedom, in a hard-working culture with modern medicine, I had been spared the suffering common for most of history and in many parts of the world. Because of my context and my choice to follow the Lord, I thought I deserved a comfortable life.

When I lost my husband, my best friend, and the father of my children, I felt robbed. I was angry and asked why. Why Ed? Why take someone who was active in kingdom work? Wouldn’t God have received glory if He had answered the many prayers for Ed’s healing?

Job also asked why, but in the middle of his questions, Job proclaimed his trust in God. “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” I have something Job did not have because I can read Job’s whole story and see the past and future, the visible and the invisible, and the mercy of God. I’m still sitting in Job’s ash heap, but my story also has a past and future, visible and invisible, and the touch of God's mercy. Like Job, I can’t see my whole story. Maybe someday my questions will be answered, but today I need to accept not knowing the explanation.

I knew my unanswered questions could ferment into bitterness. Because Ed didn’t want bitterness to poison our children, I watched him resist the human tendency of bitterness by accepting cancer and the suffering it entailed. Ed prayed for healing with his hands open to accept death.

Ed wasn’t the first person who found peace this way. Elisabeth Elliot wrote “Acceptance is the key to peace in suffering.” Elisabeth knew hard questions and suffering: her first husband was murdered and her second husband died of cancer.

I wanted the peace Ed had experienced. But for Ed, accepting death meant gaining the glories of heaven. I still had to put children to bed alone, listen to friends tell of their anniversary get-aways, and mark “widow” on tax forms. I hated thinking of living without Ed for decades, but I was even more scared of becoming a bitter old woman.

After Ed’s death I forced myself to push on, to learn to cope, to figure out how to change the van’s registration, and find its insurance information. I took the children camping and planted a garden. Those around me said I was a strong woman, but I knew staying busy wasn’t what I really needed. I somehow needed to accept the pain without being destroyed by it, to remember Ed, and to acknowledge the enormity of my loss without suffocating.

Jesus invites us to “come...and I will give you rest.” Rest? Sounds like what any overwhelmed single mom with six children needs. He promises rest if I come to Him, but bitterness will erect a barrier between us. To live in the restful presence of Christ, I can’t demand answers to my questions. I need Him more than I need answers.

Elisabeth Elliot also said, “If your faith rests on the character of Him who is the eternal I AM, then that kind of faith is rugged and will endure.” I want the rest found in enduring faith. I unclench my hands and hold them open. I ask God to give me a warm heart to melt that icy snowball inside me. I know Who God is (a good God) and who I am (His daughter). After God reminded Job of His creative power, Job accepted that his questions would remain unanswered. I do the same.

Ed had planned to close his sermon with words from Revelation 7:14-17. This passage describes a scene of believers from all nations and tongues. They endured great trials on earth and are now gathered in heaven worshiping before God’s throne where they have no hunger, thirst, or tears.

Heaven is not fair either. Why would God want to share His home with us? Why do I deserve His eternal rest—a gift He invites me to begin to experience now? It is a gift without answers. Whatever injustice I perceive now will vanish in the glories of heaven. The hunger for relationships, the thirst for fulfillment, and the pain of separation will no longer be present. Either my questions will be answered or they won’t matter anymore.

I still fight bitterness every day. Maybe time will fade the pain. Maybe I’ll think “it’s not fair” less often. But I suspect that every holiday, every memory, every new milestone my children reach will require me to open up my hands and give my questions back to God so I can walk into His rest.

I was the one who needed Ed’s sermon, written in his notes and lived in his life and death.

First published in the winter issue of Daughters of Promise.

Photos by Regina Rosenberry.