Barbara's Journey

Where Are You, God?

Her daughter lay dying and God was nowhere to be found.

Friday was bright and sunny, a mockery of my mood as I left the hospital. I could not recall another time when I had felt so lost and alone. Why was this happening? I could not understand how a loving and caring God could be there for my beautiful daughter through the most tragic events of her young life, only to abandon her now.

As I drove west on Highway 20 and onto the interstate that would take me home, my mind flashed images of her lying in the hospital bed, flushed with fever and semi-comatose from a brain infection of unknown origin - a viral infection, the doctor had said. She was not even being extended the courtesy of an infection that could respond to antibiotics! Viral meningitis: No treatment, no cure. "It will have to run its course," the nurse informed me. "Most people come through this on their own with no adverse affects."

My daughter, due to her injuries, does not fall into a category with "most people." Since her brain injury two months earlier, she has endured and survived numerous crises. Certainly, she has been the recipient of many miracles, and for that I continue to be thankful, though where my daughter is concerned, I can be as selfish as they come; if she needs another miracle, I have no qualms about asking. And ask, I had--over and over again.

My daughter had been in God's hands since her injury, and only God could help her now. Her condition had worsened over the past ten days and she has not made any show of recovery from the latest indignity imposed upon her in the form of this virus. Several times each day, her temperature soars to 105 degrees and the nurses must pack her entire body in ice to bring the fever down to a safe level.

By noon Friday, I had seen enough--I had to walk out the door and leave the professionals to do their jobs. I could no longer bear to watch her suffer. I am, by nature, a coward.

As I drove the all-too-familiar route down Interstate 43 South toward the exit that would bring me into Janesville and the sanctuary of my attic apartment, I worked very hard to hold back tears that were stinging my eyes. The only way to keep the tears from flowing copiously was to speak aloud. I talked to God as I drove. I must be honest and say that I did not really talk to Him, I shouted at Him. I screamed that she needed Him now more than ever, and that it seemed unfair that He would abandon her just as she was beginning to recover from her injuries.

I verbalized the events of my daughter’s latest relapse as my car coasted toward the Highway 12 exit. I had less than a quarter of a tank of gas, and it is not like me to take an unknown exit onto an unfamiliar road even in the best of circumstances. I drove, still alternating between pleading and shouting to a God who obviously had not been listening to me for some time and apparently was not listening now.

I drove along not caring that I had taken the unfamiliar exit, and had run out of things to say. My final question was a plea that carried a somewhat accusatory tone: "God, where are you?" I rounded a small curve in the road just as I shouted those words and there, along the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, off an exit that had lured me for reasons unknown, stood a large white billboard which read: I'll be back. - God.