One Month Later, Part Two

“Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not 'So there's no God after all,' but 'So this is what God's really like. Deceive yourself no longer.'”

~ C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Today I reached an ugly place.  A place where I don't want to hope any more.  It seems too much, too hard.

I don't want to hope that Eve wasn't our last child.  I don't want to be pregnant with anyone else but her.  I don't want to have to endure months of waiting for a child that dies before it lives.  I don't want to have to birth a dead baby again.

I don't want to hope that she's in Heaven.  Because if God is a "good gift giver" but lets babies die, lets people starve, lets husbands beat their wives, lets us live these lives of pain -- then what kind of place is Heaven?

I don't want to hope that His "good" is actually good.

I don't want to hope that God is still here, still loving.  That He sees me as anything more than a plaything, a subject to experiment upon.

It seems easier to not get my hopes up.  To not look forward with expectation.  To live only right here, right now.  To keep my head down.  To make what little I can of this life.

Hope seems foolish, idiotic.  How can I hope?

I hate hope.

(I wanted to end this post -- this rant -- there, but I can't deny that there's something niggling at my brain.  Or my heart?  Something that refuses my refusal.  Could it be God?  But I don't want to trust it.  Is it possible that God's love is more than my own wishful thinking?)