Our anger following the death of someone we have loved is often felt towards God. If God is all loving how could He/She allow this tragedy to happen? For so many to vent our anger, or even rage, towards the Divinity seems quite wrong and so to our own detriment we suppress it. Then our faith may go into crisis and if we attended church we may find excuses not to do so any longer. Likewise our prayer life suffers and our connection to Spirit becomes quite tenuous. This can be a very lonely place because not only are we cutting off our spiritual lifeline but also our only possible connection to our loved one who is in spirit. The idea of God’s shoulders being big enough to carry our anger is important. That God is like a loving parent who holds tightly to an angry child until its emotion subsides, and then holds even tighter, is a useful way of understanding our anger from the divine perspective. In our grief we need to know that it is quite okay to be angry with God and in our anger we are still going to be loved.
Fr Jim Cogley