Need help: how to determine God's will in a situation

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ellzeena

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I have been attempting to come to terms with my daughter’s severe mental illness and death (two years ago) by accepting it as God’s will. I have been praying for extraordinary grace in order to do this and my confessor has been supporting me.

Today there was a substitute priest at the 11AM Mass where I served (Eucharistic Minister). He was a wonderful priest. Today’s gospel is very difficult for me. I wonder where Jesus was when my daughter did what she did. This priest told us a true story about a woman who lost her son at age 12 and he was given a “word of knowledge” that God would “give her a sign” that her son was with Him and she did get one, a remarkable one. After Mass, I asked Father how to accept God’s will in my circumstance and he told me this is NOT GOD’S WILL. Now I have a serious problem.

I had a software program on her computer that sent me reports of usage every two hours. I saw that she was watching a You Tube video on how to load a shotgun. I remember my reaction that moment but I was so tired, so sick, emotionally and psychologically, that the possibility of anyone actually doing something like this, especially my own daughter, didn’t seem even remotely credible. But she did do it. When she told me she was going out to buy an electric blanket, she took my credit card. She didn’t buy an electric blanket. Now I think God put that video in front of me, to warn me, because His Will was for her NOT to succeed that day, and that I dropped the ball, that it’s my fault.

What’s even close to truth here? I need some help. Every single time I get over one huge horrific hurdle another one appears. If it isn’t God’s will and it happened anyway, doesn’t that mean He isn’t in control?
 
Ellzeena,
I do not have an answer for you, but I’m going to keep you in my prayers. I know it is hard, but I do NOT believe it is your fault. I recommend counseling, either with a priest, or someone who has experience in this. I would also do a novena to St. Dymphna, the patron saint of mental illness.

God bless you,
Christina
 
God’s in control, directly or indirectly, of everything. That is Catholic theology. Some things he only permits to happen (ex: your daughter’s suicide), some he directly causes (ex: the birth of Christ). He only allows something bad to happen if He is going to use that to bring about some greater good.

So, God did not directly will the suicide of your daughter. That is what the priest meant. But He permitted that evil to happen because of a greater good He is bringing about. So in that sense,the most complete picture, it is His will. You may never know what is greater good is or someday you me realize and see it.

I hope this helps. I will be praying for you to find healing and peace that is most definitely God’s will for you.

-Fr Jones
 
It is important also to remember that God allows us freedom of will, even though he’s always influencing us with His grace. He did not want your daughter to choose to kill herself. But he allowed it. Our gift of freedom to choose, and ability to know is what makes us a person.

He does not want you to suffer. He did want her to do this, but he allowed it. Now he wants you to find peace and healing from this tragedy.

I am very sorry this happened to you and your daughter. God is sorry too. It causes God sadness when human beings make evil choices. Yet He gives us that ability - the gift of personhood.
  • Fr Jones
 
ellzeena said:
I have been attempting to come to terms with my daughter’s severe mental illness and death (two years ago) by accepting it as God’s will. I have been praying for extraordinary grace in order to do this and my confessor has been supporting me.

Today there was a substitute priest at the 11AM Mass where I served (Eucharistic Minister). He was a wonderful priest. Today’s gospel is very difficult for me. I wonder where Jesus was when my daughter did what she did. This priest told us a true story about a woman who lost her son at age 12 and he was given a “word of knowledge” that God would “give her a sign” that her son was with Him and she did get one, a remarkable one. After Mass, I asked Father how to accept God’s will in my circumstance and he told me this is NOT GOD’S WILL. Now I have a serious problem.

I had a software program on her computer that sent me reports of usage every two hours. I saw that she was watching a You Tube video on how to load a shotgun. I remember my reaction that moment but I was so tired, so sick, emotionally and psychologically, that the possibility of anyone actually doing something like this, especially my own daughter, didn’t seem even remotely credible. But she did do it. When she told me she was going out to buy an electric blanket, she took my credit card. She didn’t buy an electric blanket. Now I think God put that video in front of me, to warn me, because His Will was for her NOT to succeed that day, and that I dropped the ball, that it’s my fault.

What’s even close to truth here? I need some help. Every single time I get over one huge horrific hurdle another one appears. If it isn’t God’s will and it happened anyway, doesn’t that mean He isn’t in control?
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My heart aches for you. I wish I could say the exact words to help. When my seven year old granddaughter was killed in a car accident we struggled with the question “Why? Why our little Danielle?” We have no answer but even so, without the belief that this question will be answered someday, we could not go on. Cling desperately to Christ. Hold on to his love as never before. Someday the answer will come and although the sorrow remains peace will be yours again.
 
FrStevenJones said:
It is important also to remember that God allows us freedom of will, even though he’s always influencing us with His grace. He did not want your daughter to choose to kill herself. But he allowed it. Our gift of freedom to choose, and ability to know is what makes us a person.

He does not want you to suffer. He did want her to do this, but he allowed it. Now he wants you to find peace and healing from this tragedy.

I am very sorry this happened to you and your daughter. God is sorry too. It causes God sadness when human beings make evil choices. Yet He gives us that ability - the gift of personhood.
  • Fr Jones
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I thank you, Father. Actually, my daughter had no “will”. Mental illness is quite pervasive. She was most likely in a dissociative state that day or she would have presented with behavior that would have made me refuse the car keys. I found St. Ignatius’ eight rules for discernment: it occurs to me that the evil one is able to follow us even into Church. I was brought right back to the horror and with that horror comes a feeling that I need to escape, that I can’t do “this”, and that’s what the evil one wants. But I am consecrated to God and I think His will on this particular day was for me to learn this lesson of discernment so as to fight off future attacks. I was warned, at age five (during an NDE, I had double pneumonia) about this entire thing. I don’t mean to imply that I’m any more important than anyone else because I am not, but God is doing something here, in my life, and always has been. Something I cannot even begin to comprehend. And my job is to finish the race.
 
ellzeena said:
… by accepting it as God’s will. I have been praying for extraordinary grace in order to do this.
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It is not “God’s Will”, but that does not mean that He is not in control. Fr Jones has explained that.

Don’t pray for acceptance that it is His Will (because it isn’t possible to accept a lie, and that will require more than extraordinary grace), but do pray for acceptance that she committed suicide; that she died; that you couldn’t stop it; that you were not in control of her life. (That is possible, and ordinary grace is enough.)
Today’s gospel is very difficult for me. I wonder where Jesus was when my daughter did what she did.
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At the right hand of God, permitting us to exercise our free will that He gave us. Yours, in not recognising the sign; hers, in committing suicide. Probably with great sadness.

But that statement exposes an anger at God (also quite normal as part of the grieving process). It may help to accept that you have it, and pray for relief from it.
Now I think God put that video in front of me, to warn me, because His Will was for her NOT to succeed that day, and that I dropped the ball, that it’s my fault.
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That is getting into the nitty gritties of the way it works, and assuming that it works that way. It doesn’t.
  1. Certainly, the video was a sign, and you did not recognise it or act on it this time. You probably acted on hundreds of other signs.
  2. It is not your ball to drop. It is not your fault. You are not (were not) in control of your daughter’s life. It is her life, she was in control.
  3. There is no point is hanging on to one event. When people do big things like this, it is about intent. Even the courts judge people based on intent. So if the intent was there (clearly proved), then she would have done it one way or another. If she did not succeed at this occasion, she would succeed at another.
What’s even close to truth here? I need some help. Every single time I get over one huge horrific hurdle another one appears. If it isn’t God’s will and it happened anyway, doesn’t that mean He isn’t in control?
Click to expand...
The great battle, every day, every hour, for every one, is between our will and God’ Will. It may take a person fifty years to acquire the wisdom that is required to submit to God’s Will. But for a mentally ill person that is completely out of reach. They are completely committed to rebellion against God. I would say that all mental illness is a symptom of rebellion against God. If they turn that anger and rebellion outwards it looks like homicide; if they turn it inwards it looks like suicide. We are aware, conscious of our rebellion and we pray for release, but for mentally ill people, the rebellion is their whole life, their identity, and they are not aware of it.

It is normal when a loved one dies, to blame ourselves, and to look for the One Thing that we could have done that would have prevented it; to blame ourselves. That is normal in the sense that it is a feeling and thought that is well-known part of the grieving process.

But it is not logical or correct. Your daughter’s life was not in your hands (it was in hers), so nothing you did, or did not do, would have stopped it. If it was not that occasion, it would have been another; if it was not a shotgun, it would have been a car or a bridge. Thinking that you were in control of her life is a huge affront to her.

Hanging onto that One Thing, is just your clinging to the falsehood that you had control of your daughter’s life. Giving that up is the next step in accepting, in coming to terms with, her death.

After two years, if you are still jumping over hurdles, you are still battling in your mind. Give it up.

My father died after 15 months of cancer (the doctors gave him three weeks). Even though we had lots of time to prepare; to say all the things that needed to be said; to come to terms with it, it still took me five years after he died, to come to terms with it. But I did not have that mental battle that you have. With that battle, it will take you much more than five years.

The soul is beyond the mind, God is beyond the mind. So I suggest you give up trying to understand God via the mind; trying to understand the series of single events that lead to her suicide via the mind; trying to control some one else’s life through your mind. Her battle was with God, beyond the mind. Your battle is trying to understand God and those events via the very vehicle that is incapable of understanding it.

What is called for is a great and sincere act of humility. Go beyond your mind, and accept that it has happened; that you had no control of her; that you have no idea how or why it happened. If you do not, you are remaining committed to your thoughts that you were in control of her life; that you can understand the torment of another person; that you can understand God.
 
Listen to Father Jones. And please do not place the blame on yourself.

Hugs.
 
ellzeena said:
Now I think God put that video in front of me, to warn me, because His Will was for her NOT to succeed that day, and that I dropped the ball, that it’s my fault.
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If it really were a warning from God for you, He would also have given you the power to recognize that incident as a warning. Can you honestly believe that God isn’t aware of the natural limitations of our mind or that He sent you a warning precisely when you were tired and sick, so you couldn’t perceive it, only to punish you afterwards with the death of your daughter and with a life of absurd guilt??

We have this tendency to blame ourselves for every moment when our judgement is objectively clouded by tiredness, fear, sadness, sickness, as if it were a pure issue of will power to escape all these and to function at our best each and every moment. But it isn’t so; this is our nature, we often get tired, sick and one can’t really speak about exercising free will when he or she is deeply exhausted and confused. Neither it means that the devil clouds our judgement against God’s will (that would mean a God who is not omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent) or that God allows the devil to do it just to “teach us a lesson” in discernment (that would mean a cruel God who puts us in a lose-lose situation, like sending you warnings when you couldn’t perceive them and then punishing you for not listening). No; it’s just our limited nature and mind, allowed as such by God.

Perhaps the priest wanted to say that it wasn’t God who made your daughter ill and instructed her to buy and use the gun - which is true. But God allowed it to happen, as long as He allows our mind to be limited and our nature to be vulnerable to illnesses and to their consequences. Likewise, God allows deadly accidents and natural catastrophes to happen. IMO it’s useless to seek someone to blame for this (ourselves, God, “the evil one”, other people); the only meaningful thing is to try to cope the best we can, praying to God for help. That’s why people use to say that suffering helps bring us back to God or closer to God and this is usually understood by “the greater good” that can be extracted from suffering and loss. In fact I don’t see other possible “greater good”, since losing a loved one is hell on earth.

I can’t tell you to stop *feeling *guilty, because this is difficult when you’re grieving (my mother died one year ago while I wasn’t there because I didn’t realize that she was dying - ever since I haven’t been able to overcome my guilt one bit). But I know that the first right step is to understand rationally that you have no reasons to blame yourself.
 
We won’t always know what God’s will is or was. Don’t make conclusions about anything – there are more important things in life than in “knowing” everything with absolutel certainty. We can ask God about these things when we see Him in Heaven.

I’m sorry for your loss and for the grief you have been enduring. Remember that our Savior is with you, every second. It’s our choosing to walk with Him that can be the hard part!
 
I would like to thank you all from the deepest place in my soul for helping me with all of this wise advice and thoughtful response. I have “heard” every word, spoken by each of you. I struggled for years to keep her alive. I lived in a lock down psychiatric ward in my home, even the butter knives were in the safe. She got away from me that day. No, I am not responsible, even though I try so hard to be, I almost need to be. God has worked on me for two years to remove this, it is not what He wants for me now. I have lived in a sort of purgatory for so many years.

The Holy Spirit has spoken to me through you. May God abundantly bless you for your selfless prayer and thoughtfulness.
 
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