People would always tell me, “When the Lord is calling you, then it’s your time to go”.  This always made me think that God was the one who decided when people needed to die, that he was the one that took people’s lives.  When my Mémère got sick to the point where she was dying, I prayed to God.  I asked Him to let her live, for her to get better, and for Him not to take her from me.  A couple weeks after she passed away, I blamed Him for everything.  The life was drained from me.  I wasn’t my usual, joyful, happy self, and I hated God.

For many years, I didn’t know my Mémère, but I did know that she was a loving, kind, and thankful person.  When I would visit her at the nursing home with my Nana, I would always draw her a picture while my Nana and her were having a conversation.  It’s not that I didn’t want to talk to her, because I did.  It is just that I didn’t understand what her and my Nana were talking about half of the time; instead of being bored out of my mind, I would draw something with the stubby pencil and small notebook I brought with me.  When I finally finished drawing, I would stare at my Nana until she looked at me so I could present the masterpiece I had drawn to Mémère.  Each time I showed Mémère the picture I had drawn for her, I had to explain what it was because she was losing her eyesight.  Then she would say “It’s beautiful, go hang it up on the wall for me so I can look at it every day” so I did.

A couple years after my Mémère died, I met a woman named Ann.  She was also loving, kind, thankful, and she looked like Mémère.  One day I drew her a picture of a red rose that was surrounded with green leaves and had my mother’s name, my mother’s boyfriend’s name, and my name in the background.  When I showed it to her, she started to cry and said how beautiful it was, even though she couldn’t see it that well.  A little while later, she hung it up on the refrigerator, as she did with every other picture I drew for her, so she could, too, see it every day.  Just as I got close to her, she was diagnosed with bladder and ovarian cancer and passed away a month later.  I thought to myself, “God did it again.  Is he doing this to punish me?  When I get close to someone and start to love them with all my heart he decides to take them?”.  This is when I truly hated God.

For the celebration of my fifteenth birthday, I went to the movie theaters with my mother, her boyfriend Frank, and a friend.  We saw the movie The Shack.  It’s about a man named Mackenzie who went on a camping trip with his three children Josh, Missy, and Kate.  During the trip Missy, the youngest child, went missing.  After Mackenzie looked around and couldn’t find her, he prayed, “Oh, God Missy.  Oh, God.  Please, God.”  He prayed to God, as I did for my Mémère and Ann to let them live.  The police were contacted and a search party was sent out.  The result of the search was finding the dress Missy was wearing covered in blood on the floor of an old, wooden shack in the woods.  At this point, the police felt she had been murdered.

After mourning her death, Mackenzie went back to the shack because of a mysterious letter he found in his mailbox saying it was from his daughter, Missy.  When he got to the shack he met Jesus in the form of a Middle Eastern carpenter.  Later on he met God, who was in the form of an African American woman who called herself Elousia or Papa.  Then he met the Holy Spirit, who was in the form of an Asian woman who called herself Sarayu.  They took Mackenzie on a journey through forgiveness, love, and closure to show him that God is not to blame for the deaths of people. 

Mackenzie also met a spirit called wisdom in the form of a woman.  The movie scene that I connected to the most was when Mackenzie talked to Wisdom.  During his conversation with Wisdom, he explained to her how he blamed God for Missy’s death and thought that God was punishing him just like I had done with my Mémère and Ann.  “God is to blame”, “Did he use her to punish me?”

Wisdom replied, “God isn’t like that.  This is not God’s doing”.

Mackenzie said, “He didn’t stop it”, this was a reason that led me on to despise God. 

“He doesn’t stop a lot of things that cause Him pain.  What happened to Missy was the work of evil.  And no one in your world is immune from it.”, said Wisdom.  Suddenly I realized it wasn’t God’s fault that people die and that I should not blame Him for the death of Ann and my Mémère. 

Near the end of the movie, Mackenzie buried his daughter with the trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  When she was laid in the casket he fell on his knees and broke down crying.  They buried her at a place surrounded by beautiful plants and flowers.   This was the last of the father’s mourning of Missy throughout the movie.  Burying Missy helped him heal.  This part reminded me of how I broke down at the funerals of my Mémère and Ann.  However my mourning and closure helped me heal.  Throughout this movie, I connected Mackenzie’s feelings to my own , and it helped me move on from my loved one’s deaths, to forgive even when it hurts, and to learn that it is not God’s fault that they died.  This movie made me cry because I could relate to the pain that Mackenzie was feeling.  But, just as he was able to move on, so was I.