Kenzie’s Story

When we lose a loved one, our first response is to be angry with God. We forget the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the grace that He has given us.

When I was in that period of my life, I followed the same pattern. I forgot all that I had learned in church and in the Bible. It wasn’t until I looked back that I realized how much Jesus helped me. I started looking at the things around me, realizing how beautiful the world was even though a beautiful person was taken out. There was still so much beauty around me, more than I had ever seen.

Sometimes it takes times of anger, sadness, and grief for us to come closer to Jesus and experience the healing that only He can provide. While Jesus can be our best friend through everything, I believe it’s through the really dark times that we learn to fully rely on Him and all that He suffered for in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross.

Sometimes, especially while growing up, I would think that Jesus suffered for the emotion of anger as a whole and the emotion of sadness as a whole. But I’ve learned that Jesus knows exactly what my sadness feels like and what my anger feels like because He suffered for me. I think it’s so beautiful that He knows every single situation so personally and intimately. For those of us who have lost someone so tragically and unexpectedly, it’s a very specific type of pain that Jesus had to go through. And it’s okay.

Whether or not you leave your church out of anger, the important thing is that you don’t lose your relationship with Jesus. While you need to eventually go back to church and follow what you know is true, that constant relationship with God and Jesus Christ is what is most important.