My Dad has died and I find no comfort in Christianity

[Minniethemoocher]

My Dad died last month, very suddenly. We were very close and I miss him so much, it is almost a physical pain, in the pit of my stomach.

I would say that I was a Christian, but my vicar preaches that only Christians that accept Jesus as their lord and Saviour will go to heaven. My father was a very good man, kind, never hurt anyone in his life, but was not a Christian. He did have a vague belief in God, and was spiritual, but not a Christian, in fact he didn't like organised religion of any kind, thought it was the cause of wars and suffering in the world.

So I get no comfort from my Christian belief. I so want to believe that my darling Dad is in heaven or that his spirit survives and he is at peace, but Christianity, at least as preached by my Church tells me that he cannot be, as he was not a Christian.

I feel so lost and alone and I am questioning whether Christianity is the way to God...maybe I need to look elsewhere for the answer.

Looking for answers/comments from all, regardless of your own beliefs/religion.

Minnie

Minnie... I'm sorry for your loss.

Whilst I know this might not be what you want to hear, know that He holds you in His arms.

Regardless of my beliefs, I am very sorry for your loss, thinking of you at the sad time...

I'm so sorry Minnie - my personal belief is that the good go to Heaven. I do not believe that God cares what you name Him, only that you are good to the best of your ability. I believe your father is in Heaven now.

Minnie, I am so sorry. The sort of beliefs that exclude others are not beliefs I could ever imagine anyone finding comforting.

My lovely Catholic grandmother's response when we brought her conundrums of this sort was:

"We know where God is; it is not for us to say where He is not".

I think all we can do is to follow what we believe is the right path, and trust that God's mercy is sufficiently generous to encompass all sorts of things we cannot begin to understand ourselves.

sorry about your dad.

I look at it this way (and I doubt this will help as I've been tolfd I'm a bit weird on this kind of stuff, but you never know): if there is a god (which I doubt), then I cannot believe in a vindictive god. what sort of a vain god would want to cavort in heaven with believers only, rather than good people of all beliefs?

But what I really believe is that peole live on in other people. in sons and daughters and in everyone whose lives they ever touched.

Minnie,

I'm really sorry for your loss. I know how I felt when I lost my dad.

As far as I am concerned, your vicar can only talk in a general way about what happens after death. He doesn't know for sure. How could he?

I believe that God gives us a choice when we die, to accept him or not. I believe you can become a Christian at the point of death. I cannot say for certain whether your dad is now with God, but if your dad was a good man, I believe this carries more weight with God than a thousand prayers from a so-called Christian who does not practise love for his fellow man (or woman).

I take comfort from Matthew Ch 20, which to me means that you can be saved at any time, right up to the end (and beyond, who knows except God?):

?For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o?clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; and he said to them, ?You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.? So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o?clock, he did the same. And about five o?clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ?Why are you standing here idle all day?? They said to him, ?Because no one has hired us.? He said to them, ?You also go into the vineyard.? When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ?Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.? When those hired about five o?clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ?These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.? But he replied to one of them, ?Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?? So the last will be first, and the first will be last.?

Minnie, I am in a state where I am questioning my own (non-Christian) beliefs after my dad's death before Christmas. I am of the mindset at the moment that we find comfort after a loved ones death from believing life goes on, in whatever form our religion or spiritual beliefs allow us. Whatever point I am at right now, I don't believe that anymore, as I just feel a hole where my dad used to be and if what I had thought was true, it wouldn't be a hole; he would be "living on" and filling it.

My dad is with me, everywhere and in everything I do and everything I have. He is a part of me and my life... but that is because he influenced so much, and fills the memories I hold. He does not "live" as I would feel him. I miss the beliefs I once held as they gave me comfort which I no longer have.

Years ago, when I used to live in shared houses, I used to live with a Christian and we often used to speak about our differing beliefs. She told me something that made a lot of sense to me - her church were, at that time, "revising" the meaning of hell. To them, hell was living without the love of the Father. To a non-Christian, that is not hell, that is everyday life.

Grieving is a physical pain. It does hurt.

x

your dad has only been gone a month. you must give yourself time to grieve. my mum died several years ago now but it took me a good year to start moving on. grieve first and worry about everything else later. god bless x

Thank you all for taking the time to reply and for sharing your views with me.

I suppose that I just can't bear the thought that my Dad is gone and doesn't still exist in some form or other.

I am looking for some comfort from believing in an afterlife and I have found that the views of my vicar are not what I so desperately need to believe right now.

I find it hard to believe that God would not want my lovely Dad, as MaryBS put it

If your Dad was a good man, I believe this carries more weight with God than a thousand prayers from a so-called Christian who does not practise love for his fellow man (or woman).

Minnie

quite honestly, you never get used to loosing a parent, it was a few years until i finally stopped thinking, everytime something happened, oooh, i must ring mum. i hurts for a long time, but when people say it will get easier (and you think, no it wont) it does, really. x

At the moment it hurts, a lot, an almost physical, "gnawing" sort of pain of loss.

I was very close to my Dad, he was my best friend, my confidant. He was always the voice of reason and the person who I turned to first for advice.

We shared the same sense of humour, liked the same films. I am very much like him, or so I am often told.

I am searching for some crumbs of comfort and I suppose that I have no regrets, I had no harsh words or arguments before he died, spent time with him in hospital, sat by his bed when he was dying, holding his hand.

Some people don't even get that chance. I just wish that he was still here....

Minnie

Well bugger me, I wrote a reply a few days ago and I must have failed to post it!

I'm sorry about your dad and I'm sorry about your vicar, who doesn't sound very helpful. There are churches - like yours - who take a very literal view of being "saved" and "unsaved". But there are also lots of more (IMO!) considered streams of thought within Christianity that would not take that view. Personally, I think that if we believe that God - as three-in-one - has Relationship at God's very centre - with three in relationship with each other being our definition of God - then we need to think of God/love/relationship as being crucial to any understanding that we have of the world and the afterlife.

I would say that although your dad might not have had any specifically Christian belief, he didn't escape from having a relationship with God/love, because in the very fact of having a loving relationship with YOU, you and your dad were ministering God to each other. What is the essence of a loving relationship if it is not all about God - who is love? And in all the loving relationships that are created around the world, God is there, and people are growing and learning about God through growing and learning in love.

All those loving relationships are like a chain, of which each person on earth is a link, and as those links leave the earth for the afterlife, slowly the chain is rebuilt, not on earth, but in the Kingdom of Heaven, and hopefully there we will continue to grow and learn in love but with a deeper understanding of what God means.

That's what I think anyway. So please don't feel that Christianity can offer you no comfort, just because your particular church is not offering you hope at this time. What is Christianity about if it is not about redemption, love, and hope, and the promise of reconciliation with each other and God?

I'm glad that you had a chance to be with your dad during his final days - he was really lucky to have had you too.

Hi Minnie

I'm really sorry to hear about your loss, it sounds like you and your dad were both very lucky to have each other. As you say, you must feel terribly lost without him.

I'm also sad about what your vicar was preaching. I'm a Christian too and I once had a conversation with our vicar about what would happen to my dh - he is a non-believer. He said something very similar to Mary's post, that when the time comes God will offer that choice.

x

Hi Minnie - I had a similar relationship with my dad, who passed over almost a year ago, so I can appreciate how raw you must be feeling. I'm not a christian so I don't know what I can say that may help you - only that I feel that when we pass over we rejoin what was, what is, and what will always be: Gaia; God; Allah; Buddah, whatever source you feel comfortable with.
Overall, I'm sure your dad is absolutely fine, as mine is, and still caring for you and guiding you through your shared bond of love. Take care

Maybe you should try another church where the minister has slightly different believes..

A friend of ours (who is a minister and DD Godfather) told me that my mum couldn't see me from Heaven as only God can see us..

It really upset me, as I believed that she would be able to see us, and needed to believe that she could..

But at my church I had so many people (including our minister) saying that my mum could see us (at DD baptism they saw me crying afterwards and I said that I wish my mum was here and could see it)..

Not all Christians share the same beliefs and quite honestly I believe when I NEED to believe to make me feel better..

I believe that both my Mum and Dad are in Heaven (and my dad wasn't outwardly religious) and they can see me and my family and continue to be proud of me... that is what gets me through every day that I have to endure without them....

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to reply. I have decided that right now I NEED to believe that my Dad lives on, in some form of after life and that he can see the people he loved.

OK, my vicar doesn't agree with me, but he is only a man, and none of us, including vicars, can truly know the answers.

A loving God would want my Dad with him. He was a truly lovely, good man, far better I may add than many so called Christians!!

Minnie

Hi Minnie - just wanted to add a quotation from the children's writer Philip Pullmann - who is an atheist - when asked what if he died and then met God and was about to be judged, having been a non-believer, he said "Well, he'll have to forgive me and let me in. That's his job." I agree with that - none of us can actually know the truth for sure, I'm pretty much an atheist/agnostic myself, but if there is a God, I'd rather believe in a God that is all forgiveness and love as he is supposed to be, than the nasty punishing God that some religious people talk about. IMO a lot of organised religion ends up being all about suffering and punishing and forbidding and retribution, but I think that's more to do with human nature than anything any god or prophet (such as Jesus) has actually said. I also once heard an interview with a Methodist woman who said she didn't believe in Hell, because we are all God's children and "No matter how cross I was with my children, I could never do that to them so it can't be true." That's always stayed with me. Any God worth having will be welcoming your dad with open arms.

Minnie, good for you! I would find that a great comfort, and a lovely testimony to your Dad!

And Snowleopard - great quotes!

Minnie sorry about your Dad and that you are not getting comfort from your vicar. If you have a bible perhaps you can look up the following scriptures:

Gen 2:7 man is a living soul
Eze 18:20 what happens to the soul
Eccl 9:5 dead conscious of nothing, slate wiped clean (no wages anymore)
John 11:11 death likened to sleep
John 5:28,29 what happens to the dead in the future
Rev 21:4

Hope this helps

Dear Minnie,

I am sorry for your loss, and am thinking of you.

I am not sure if you'll still be checking this thread, but when I think of those I've lost I always get comfort from what the writer Martin Amis wrote (something like):- "This is where we go when we die - into the hearts of those that love us."

Thinking of you.

That is lovely, and so true! After my Dad died, I started saying, "I loved my Dad" but then I realised that the truth is that I still LOVE my Dad and I always will....it's just that he isn't here with me anymore.

Minnethemoocher I'm very sorry for your loss.

I'm agnostic and don't believe in an afterlife but I too firmly believe that a person's legacy lives on in their children and loves ones and in all the people who cared about them and whose lives they touched in a meaningful way.

I'm sure your Dad was very dear and special to many people who will treasure his memory as you do and will never forget him.

Try to draw strength from that because that's what's important. Try to focus on what is real and tangible. Maybe try to focus on drawing comfort from your memories of him here with you on earth rather than focussing on where he might be now...?

This is the way I remember my dear grandad to whom I was extremely close and whom I lost 12 years ago. He was an artist and I have one of his favourite paintings framed in my bedroom. I often gaze at it and remember him. It is so real to me and allows me to feel such a connection with him. I don't know why or how but it seems more a part of him than a photo. I find it very comforting.

Take care of yourself, allow yourself time to grieve and I hope things start to ease soon.

Minnie, you have all my sympathies.

I wish I could have some answers for you, but my father's death (very similar situation to yours) was a large portion of why I turned away from the Christian faith too.

It felt (to me) almost like a double bereavement at the time.

Have you read the poem "Do not stand at my grave and weep"? It comforted me when my Grandfather died. In a funny way, when he died, I didn't really feel that he had gone. Still don't really, 7 years on. Really feel he's with me somehow. I believe who die live on in the people they leave behind.