Dear God

Pam and Darren, my two younger children, had picked up some DVDs at a video shop a few days ago. These days, sometimes we would spend time together watching a video after they had done their hours of school work. One of the DVDs that we started on was entitled, 'Letters to God'.

The story was about a young boy who was stricken with brain tumour and how he was learning to cope with it. He wrote letters beginning with 'Dear God' as he described his experiences and his journey. He used to mail all his 'Dear God' letters through the postman that came to deliver the mail each day.

The local post office was in a quandry trying to figure out what to do with these letters. I didn't finish the show but I guess the idea of letters to God sort of stuck in my mind. It makes you wonder sometimes whether our 'Dear God' prayers get stuck in some intermediary post office somewhere and don't get sent to heaven.

Many times both Kathryn and I have written letters to God as we penned down our thoughts in our journal throughout the course of our journey in recent years. I guess my recent letters to God might sound something like this:

"Dear God,
Why did Kathryn have to die? Why was she taken from me and our children when we needed her most?

Dear God, is it ok if I feel that you have let us down. Is it alright for me to tell you that we find it difficult to praise You just now? Next to Jesus, she was the precious gift that we ever had. But now she's gone.

Dear God,
Do you see the scars in our hearts,
Deep with the wound from her dying?

Do you not care how we struggle each day
as we pick up the pieces
Just to keep things going?

Dear God,
Do you not see the circles that we keep going around in? No matter how much we try
Our thoughts keep going back to memories of her

Do you not see our spirits
Bent low at times because of the pain we feel in our hearts?
Do you not see the tears that never seem to stop?

Do you not hear the cries of a broken heart.
In need of tender comforting assurance?

Do you not feel the loss we feel
Even now when we are feeling a bit lost?

Dear God, can you come and mend this broken heart?

Signed,
Just me.