We'll Understand It All By and By

Michelle Malkin links to two essays about human suffering today.  An American Housewife struggles to understand and cope with the loss of her husband, Michael, only a couple of months ago.  She struggles to maintain her religious faith in the face of this evil.  I know the feeling well. 

In the months immediately following my beloved Myrna’s death, I plunged into an angry debate with God.  That debate continues.  Every morning, I wake up to ask God the same question:

“Why must I live another day without her?”

When I am especially despondent and angry, I ask:

“Why have you crippled me?  I am so much less without her.”

An American Housewife contributes this remarkable statement:

“I used to think ‘suffering’ was a bad thing. But now that I understand it a little better I see that suffering should be an honor. By recognizing our own indivual suffering we can help others by sharing our experience, strength, and hope.”

Ms. Malkin also links to an essay by The Anchoress that continues the discussion An American Housewife began.  The Anchoress writes that:

“[Suffering] is the commonality of our humanity - the thing that Christ endured, his own Blessed Mother endured, that each and every one of us endures at some time or another. If God, in the person of his son, consented to suffer, and if God, who loved Mary well enough to honor her with the great blessing of bringing forth the Savior, did not permit her to escape suffering…then we may understand that suffering is - as JPII [Pope John Paul II] wrote - more than mere human experience, but both supernatural and human in nature, and yes, transcendant.”

I usually begin my Sunday morning, as I did when Myrna was alive, by practicing yoga.  My background music for this practice is a CD of hymns sung by Elvis.  Elvis became a clown in his 30s.  When he sang the hymns, he put aside the clown act and returned to his roots.  As soon as I finish writing this post, I’m going to do my yoga and listen to Elvis.  This, I know, is the only way that I can get through the day without falling into utter despair.

I received an e-mail from one Jonathan, son of a preacher man, this morning, in which he questioned my outlook on gay marriage, expressed the view that I might write simply because I want attention, and offered his sympathies for the loss of my wife. 

I created this blog so that you, the reader, could know Myrna.  That was entirely the reason.  Did I do this to help others?  I guess so.  In truth, I believe that each of you should have the opportunity to know my wife.  I’ve only begun to tell her story… the story of a poor girl born in a grass hut in the Philippines who travelled half way across the world to achieve great success.  As I’ve already told you, Myrna was prostituted to a gang rape when she was six years old.  She barely survived.  The tremendous suffering that she endured, and her transformation into a beautiful and spiritually brilliant woman, I have only begun to touch.

I know that each of us thinks that the loved one we lost was especially important.  All souls are equal before God (and that includes the souls of homosexuals).  Some souls are more important, in that they have great wisdom to offer us.  This was true of Myrna.  The suffering she endured in her childhood and adolescence seemed, until she was well into her twenties, to have condemned her to a life of darkness, misery and sin. As she told me, one day she looked in the mirror and asked God:

“Show me the way to the light.  This is not what I am intended to be.  Help me to express my true self.”

As I said, I created this weblog so that as many people as possible could know my Myrna.  She morphed into a completely different, astonishing person, drawing on the wisdom she devined from her pain and suffering.  I’m currently writing the story of her life in book form, and I’m working on a CD of songs about her.  The first of those songs is already up on this site:  “Where Did You Go?”  Tomorrow, I’ll be posting another song about Myrna, “You Were a Riot!” And, thank God, she really was.

I’ve met many famous, celebrated and intellectually brilliant people in my travels and business.  Myrna transcends them all, and not because she was my wife.  I’m struggling to find the way to best tell you her spiritual and intellectual wisdom, because I am inadequate to the task.  She was my superior in every way.

But I hope, in the future, to tell you the entire story of my Myrna.  You deserve to know her.  When you fully understand her, you will be thrilled and inspired.  Pray for me to find the strength and inspiration I need to tell her story.

Comments

[Housewife]

WOW. I do look forward to learning more about Myrna. She sounds INCREDIBLE! Thanks for sharing this little bit of her life with us this morning. Please continue.

God Bless.

[cecilia]

I want to know Myrna and be inspired.