Living in the Rainbow

A song that I discovered recently was Heaven by the alternative rock/post-grunge band “Live”.  The chorus includes these words

Click below to see it performed and here for the lyrics

I like this songs for a few reasons.  First, I don’t really need other people to “tell me about heaven“.  The doubts and struggles I have had since Abigail’s death aren’t things other people can solve for me.  They aren’t things that a good argument or persuasive sermon are going to fix.  They are however things I need to work through directly between me and God.

Second, whilst I believe in God and heaven for many reasons, since Abigail’s death I have another reason.  It isn’t the most intellectual and you won’t find it in many books on Christian Apologetics but it is real enough to overcome the very significant doubts I have had.  I can’t accept that this is all there is.  I can’t believe that the world was meant to be like this.  And I can’t accept that death is the end and we all just enter oblivion.  It just doesn’t feel right.

And this has been a real sense even in the darkest of times.  When the doctor told us Abigail had died my wife and I were devastated (obviously).  At that point in the doctors room I remember thinking “well God, if you are real you are going to have to hold on to me now.  I do not have the strength to hold on to you anymore” .  The funny thing is God did hold on to me.  It is hard to explain and put into words but I know he did.  We felt his presence during that time.  After Abigail had been born and I held her in my arms, I felt it was a very sacred moment.  No less so than when my living son had been born a few years before.  “I look at my daughter, and I believe.” As I held and looked at Abigail’s lifeless body I knew I believed in God and heaven.  It just made sense.  Nothing else did make sense, but this did.  Abigail was in heaven.  The alternative was too random, too meaningless and too pointless.

I don’t expect to persuade many atheists with this argument.  To be honest it isn’t really an argument at all.  But in the pain of loss and doubt a degree of ambiguity is inevitable.  When you are in the heart of the storm and trying to find a way to live in the rainbow you cannot expect to see all that clearly!

So since Abigail died I have had my doubts.  Doubts that God existed or that his goodness in anyway related to what felt like good for me here on earth.  We had prayed for a baby for 3 years and to conceive a baby only for that baby to die just felt so random!  So yes I doubted.  But putting aside all my arguments for faith in God (and I do have some) it boiled down to this – what was the alternative?

I felt a bit like Peter in John 6 (verses 66-70).  Many had been abandoning Jesus as the going was getting too tough and the teaching too controversial.  Jesus asked “You do not want to leave too, do you?“  to which Peter replied “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.“  I think it is such an honest response from Peter.  His answer suggests that if there was an alternative he would consider abandoning Christ but to whom else could he go?

I guess I always wanted to believe in a God who made life “nice”, who would protect me and make everything alright.  When Abigail died some of my glib assumptions about God were destroyed.  I do feel a bit less comfortable with God now.  But to whom else shall I go?  Christ still has the words of eternal life.