Where is God?

It has been four weeks since my wife, Amy Caveny, died on October 8, 2020 after contracting Covid 19. Most days I trudge along in a fog, struggling to focus on day to day details. Every single thing in the house reminds me of her and that she is no longer here. She will never be here again.

Not only do I miss Amy every moment of every day, her death has shaken my faith in God. I hold that God is sovereign and that he either causes things to happen in this world or allows them to take place – either way God is in control. Neither of those options feel especially loving during this time of inexplicable grief. God seems far away.

But during this horrible time people have overwhelmed me with kindness. A dear friend cried with me in the parking lot outside the emergency department at Alleghany Memorial as staff did their best to save Amy’s life. Within minutes of her death, two elders and their wives from our church sat with me on my front porch as I tried to imagine a life without Amy. Chris Durgin built a beautiful box from cherry wood that came from logs I cut from Amy’s grandmother’s homeplace. Danny Linker sawed those logs into lumber last winter. We buried Amy’s cremated remains in that box.

My coworkers from Wilkes Community College have kept me well fed and friends have taken me out for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have discovered that these offerings of food go beyond physical nourishment and are a covert way of attending to my emotional needs for connection. Days after Amy’s memorial service a friend stopped by with an apple pie. As he was leaving he asked if there was anything else he could do. I told him that I had funeral flowers in the basement that were dying and that I couldn’t walk through them anymore. I told him I could load them on my truck and drive them to the transfer station, but that I couldn’t imagine throwing them onto the trash heap. He raise his hand to stop me and simply said, “I’ll take care of it” and he did. Such simple yet precious gifts.

I have come to treasure those that stop me when I’m out to offer their condolences. They usually suggest that they don’t know what to say and settle on some version of “I’m sorry.” I have discovered that those two words carry much weight to those of us who are hurting.

As I reflect on these past weeks, I realize that God isn’t far away. God has been sending expressions of love to me every day. When I confessed through tears that I didn’t know if I could bury Amy my family said, “We’ll help you.” When I felt as though I would be consumed in a cavernous emptiness, someone showed up at my door and said, “I just had to lay eyes on you.” I requested memorials be made to the Alleghany Pregnancy Care Center, a ministry Amy loved and supported, and people have responded with over $3600 in donations in her name. Other gifts have been given to the Solid Rock Food Closet and Ebenezer Christian Children’s Home. These expressions of love would surely put a smile on Amy’s face. They have to mine.

I now see God in a different light. When I thought I couldn’t see His face, He showed up by placing a friend in the aisle with me at the grocery store that just nods a hello. He speaks through a clerk at the convenience store who says, “I’m sorry about your wife.” He pops up in a late night text from a friend who writes, “Just checking in.” 

 As I have ached with grief, I have experienced and witnessed the love of a sovereign God at work through my family, friends and neighbors. God is closer that I imagined.