Grief Without God

Learn to comfort people without mentioning God.
Your comfort isn't my comfort.
Speaking of God and heaven is not comforting at all to me.
Why?

Because I was taught God sends people to hell for taking their own life. As a child, I was told "there's no chance for repentance" when that happens, so they are "condemned" to hell. I remember those words specifically being used.
Talk of suicide was highly uncomfortable in my teen years. Especially after a school acquaintance took his life with a shotgun in a house I could see from my window. We rode the same bus.
Months later, when his brother visited our church, the speaker talked about the "Word of God" being a weapon (specifically a gun) to blow away the devil. I did not take my eyes off that young man for the entire night.
How fucking awful.
I watched classmates & groups of kids from the "popular clicks" try to help him. He didn't want their help. Where were they before this happened?
No where around.
I made sure I spoke to the brother a few times on the bus, just as I had done before his brother died.
It was all I could offer. But I sure as FUCK didn't offer fake friendship.
So when the speaker's topic became clear, I was terrified for this classmate.
Why can't you change your sermon? My god, teach on anything else tonight with this young man present.

"That's the sermon they practiced" I was told when I questioned it later. I was also told "if that's the sermon, that's what the young man needed from God."
The message was clear: the speaker's comfort was more important than this young man, who clearly did not want to be in church after his brother completed suicide. And you're comparing the Bible to a gun.
That's not traumatic at all, right?
How fucking awful.

My religion taught me his brother was in hell. And that kept me up at night for a very, very long time. I didn't like a god who could do that.

This lead to a very strange, weird place in my life where I was seeking prophecies about suicide to try to come terms with it. I got the prophecies I was looking for but now, I recall them as strange ramblings from an older woman, filled with over the top emotions and loud voice inflections to emphasize "the power of God." These prophetic words talked about how God physically stopped time for suicide. It was bat shit crazy back then and it's bat shit crazy now. 

This same religion taught me I should disown my own child for being gay. I should "disfellowship" her.
I had witnessed my church do this, publicly shame people, and tell their "sins" to the entire congregation when they had the meeting to kick them out of church.
I sat on the second row when they did it to my own sister. They kicked her out of church and fully expected me to stop speaking to her...because she moved.
Yes, she moved 45 minutes away and was shunned for it.
Not only did I NOT disown my sister when she moved or my child when she came out, I fully supported my daughter and this lead to me walking away from organized religion completely. And I'm extremely proud of that. I'm more proud of leaving religion than I EVER was inside it, trying to peddle it out to everyone.

So, talk of God and heaven don't bring me comfort like they do other people dealing with loss.
It never will. Because I can't go back an UNexperience all that. I can't learn it a different way. It happened. I'm hurt by it. It still causes issues and that's that.

So, let's learn to comfort people without the use of religion. Because even inside religion, at the core of humanity, we just need peace within grief. All of us.
For those that find comfort in religion, I'm glad it works for you. That's ok. 

But if I can't do that with religion, that's ok, too.

Learn to comfort people without mentioning God.