essay on loss of faith

Loss of Faith in Elie Wiesel's Night Essay Example

Depending on religion and beliefs, one often looks up to God, (or another higher power) to protect them from evil. Faith can be difficult when a repetition of awful events occur, leading one to wonder if the higher power they believe in is present. In the holocaust, many people in the Jewish community start to question God’s power when witnessing the brutality Jews are facing in the concentration camps. In Night by Elie Wiesel, witnessing and being a victim of abuse from the concentration camps cause Elie to lose faith, going from deeply religious, to deteriorating faith, to having lost all faith in God. 

Despite the rumors circulating about the concentration camps, at the beginning of the book, Elie faith is strong. In Sighet, Moshe the Beadle teaches him about the Kabbalah, and together they pray. Elie and Moshe stay in the synagogue praying and listening to God even “after all the faithful had gone” (Wiesel 5). Elie’s strong faith before the concentration camp is significant because it shows that he believes and trusts in God, even though he can’t fully comprehend Gods plan. After being deported to the first concentration camp, Auschwitz, two men walked to retrieve water. When they came back, they told the false information they have received to the other Jews, stating that they are in a labor camp, families will stay together, and the conditions are good. Elie, as well as the rest of the Jews who have learned the new give “thanks to God.” (Wiesel 27). Elie’s faith in God once he arrives at the concentration camp stays strong. In spite of witnessing harsh punishment from the Kapos in the concentration camp, Elie’s faith remains strong. When he receives new shoes for work, which are in good condition regardless of the mud covering them, Elie thanks God “in an improvised prayer” (Wiesel 38). Elie praying to God even after seeing the abusive Nazis is important, because it shows that Elie remains faithful. 

When Elie continues to witness the cruelty of the Nazi’s against the Jews, Elie’s faith begins to deteriorate. When the Nazis are hanging an innocent child, they force all of the Jews to watch. One Jewish man asks where God is, and Elie hears a voice inside his head telling him God is “hanging here from these gallows” (Wiesel 12). This implies Elie’s new decline in faith because he believes God is in the child being hanged, unable to help the Jews. On Rosh Hashanah, Elie was the opposite from ready to celebrate. After just witnessing a boy being hanged, Elie is angrily asking his God why he continues to trouble “these poor people's wounded minds, their ailing bodies?” (Wiesel 66). Elie’s faith is never the same after the hanging and watching the many innocent lives that are taken by the Nazis, he continues to question God throughout the book. 

Elie’s faith has already started to deteriorate but witnessing more abuse towards the Jewish community at the concentration camp for a long time causes Elie to have no more faith in God. After watching many Jews suffer, Elie has lost faith in God. When he is thinking back to the past concentration camps Elie questions God for watching as their “fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in the furnaces?” (Wiesel 67). Although he probably knows earlier, Elie is angry his mom and sister have been killed in the crematorium, and this directly effects Elie, because his immediate family is killed, without any remorse, making it seem like God is not there.  At this point, Elie has trouble finding any faith in God. When Elie watches Rabbi Eliyahu’s son betray his father, leaving his side when they are running. In desperation to not betray his father, Elie starts to pray to God “in whom [he] no longer believed” (Wiesel 91). Elie has been whipped, verbally and physically abused, and is struggling for survival. He now has no more faith in God, but despite his beliefs, is willing to pray for loyalty to his father. 

In Elie Weasel’s Memoir Night, the concentration camps Elie suffers through turn him from a religious person, to struggling with faith, to having lost his faith in God. When an unfortunate event occurs, humans tend to either gain or loose faith. Like Elie Wiesel’s loss of faith, due to the abuse he witnesses and undergoes in the concentration camps, many feel loss of faith due to traumatic experiences. In the twenty first century, there are many people suffering and dying because of corona, which can lead to loss of faith for some. By writing Night, Elie Wiesel is trying to show one must experience a traumatic event to truly test their faith.

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Loss of Faith in Night by Elie Wiesel

One of the main themes of Wiesel’s ‘Night’ is faith in God. Throughout the book the faith of the narrator, Eliezer, undergoes many assaults. In the beginning we see his ‘totalistic and zealous commitment to God’, as Downing describes his state of faith (62). Eliezer grew up believing, that everything in this world is emanation of God, who possesses both goodness and omnipotence, and there is a spark of God’s light in every human’s soul. So, he lived in a good world, ruled by good God. He did… till one day his habitual life ceased to exist. He faces the Holocaust, and it turns all his life and his beliefs upside down.

That is when he begins first to ask God different questions, then to question the very existence of God. Facing sufferings often becomes a crucial point, at which a person decides, whether to continue believing in God or not. This was also true with Eliezer. This was always true – even the Bible, filled with the stories of various men and women of faith, depicts their doubt, their spiritual struggles, and sometimes their indignation with God. So did Job, so did this little boy, Eliezer.

Probably, the turning point for Eliezer was, when he saw a boy, dying slowly, hanging on gallows. Wiesel, in this scene, shows discouragement and loss of believe of many people: ‘Behind me, I heard the same man asking: Where is God now? And I heard a voice within me answer him:… Here He is – He is hanging here on this gallows’ (Wiesel 72).

Eliezer called those moments as moments, that murdered his God, his soul and turned his dreams to dust (Wiesel 43). He could not bless God’s name, he could not plead God for anything anymore. Every fiber in him rebelled, when hearing anything about God or watching somebody worshiping God (Wiesel 74). He became the accuser, God the accused (Wiesel 10).

But in spite of that, in the following chapters we see constant emersion of his faith: ‘And, in spite of myself, a prayer rose in my heart, to that God in whom I no longer believed. My God, Lord of the Universe, give me strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou’s son has done’ (Wiesel 97). He claims, that his God is dead, but at the same time he adds: ‘Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself’, assuming that God exists (Wiesel 43).

As Job, a character from the Bible, he thought, that God had put him into darkness, but, as notices Bloom, ‘questions remain concerning … whether the leading into darkness is indeed the end’ (60). For Job it became a new starting point, a thrust to a better understanding of God. Night seems to be the end of something. The author himself says the following about his book: ‘In Night … I wanted to show the end, the finality of the event. Everything came to an end – man, history, literature, religion, God. There was nothing left. And yet we begin again with night’ (qtd. in Bloom 66).

‘Night’ is the first book of a trilogy by Wiesel, called ‘Night, Dawn and Day’, so we can see a little hint, that light will return again, that there is some hope left. All spiritual wonderings and warfare of the main character will end up with Eliezer’s better comprehension of God, as someone, who is not easy to grasp, and he never will be.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. Elie Wiesel’s Night , New York City, NY: Infobase Publishing, 2009. Print.

Downing, Frederick L.. Elie Wiesel: A Religious Biography , Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2008. Print.

Wiesel, Elie. Night ; Dawn ; Day , Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Aronson, 1985. Print.

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Loss Of Faith In Night By Elie Wiesel

Due to the challenges faced daily by the Jews in the holocaust, many of these people including Elie lost faith in god. Many people in the world today find themselves stuck in a position where they also lose all faith in god. They give up, no longer believe in faith and find themselves in a deeper whole and this is exactly what Elie Wiesel did. Elie could not accept the silence and he had rebelled against his religion of believing in faith. However, it is debatable whether Elie completely lost faith in god but it is clear he drastically changed from his past perspective on his religion.

In the beginning of the novel Elie was a strong believer of faith, but never knew the answer to why. For example, Wiesel states, ““He had watched me one day as I prayed at dusk. "Why do you cry when you pray?” he asked, as though he knew me well. "I don't know," I answered, troubled. I had never asked myself that question. I cried because something inside me felt the need to cry. That was all I knew. "Why do you pray?" he asked after a moment. Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe? "I don't know," I told him, even more troubled and ill at ease. "I don't know" (4). Elie questioned why he prayed, cried while praying and had multiple questions as to why things were as they were. Elie was a firm believer and always chose to never deny god's existence. For example Wiesel states, “Some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come. As for me, I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice” (45). Elie was always praying for things to get better, to gain a relationship with god. Although we see Elie as a firm believer in the beginning of the novel things start to change. 

Elie started losing faith quickly and not expectedly. Elie questions why he should bless the god when he is doing harm to Elie and his surrounding people. For example, Wiesel states, “Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because He kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in the furnaces? Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar” (67). Elie doesn't understand why he should be blessing someone who's doing harm and hurting him after everything Elie has been doing for his god. Elie starts to wonder throughout the novel what his god is. For example, Wiesel states, “What are You, my God? I thought angrily. How do You compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to You their faith, their anger, their defiance? What does Your grandeur mean, Master of the Universe, in the face of this cowardice, this decay, and this misery? Why do you do on troubling these poor people’s wounded minds, their ailing bodies” (66). Elie doesn’t know who his god is and doesn’t understand why he's putting so much hurt on people who don’t deserve it. Although we can tell Elie is starting to lose all the faith he's put towards his god, Elie begins to change his mind. 

Elie suddenly begins to plead for forgiveness for his loss of faith. Elie finally realized he needs forgiveness in his life. For example, Wiesel states, “I knew that my sins grieved the Almighty and so I pleaded for forgiveness. In those days, I fully believed that the salvation of the world depended on every one of my deeds, on every one of my prayers. But now, I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt to myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger” (68). Elie realized he was alone and needed his God to rely on. He needed him to be there for him through it all. Now that Elie realized he needed his god, he had so many questions, where was god? For example, Wiesel states, “Were there still miracles on this earth?” (76). Elie was in major of a miracle. He was begging god to change something, anything. He came back to his god, and he needed him more than ever.

Although Elie’s perspective changes throughout the novel on his views of his faith. We realize he needs his god. To count on his sins, to plead for forgiveness and lastly to help his people. Elie rebelled against his religion but soon realized he needed to gain his faith back. He needed to be forgiven, he needed to be helped, he felt so alone. God will always be there when you need him as long as you are faithful to him. 

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Elie Wiesel

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

One of the main themes of Night is Eliezer's loss of religious faith. Throughout the book, Eliezer witnesses and experiences things that he cannot reconcile with the idea of a just and all-knowing God.

At the beginning of the narrative, Eliezer declares, "I believed profoundly." He is twelve years old and his life is centered around Judaism—studying the Talmud during the day, praying at the synagogue at night until he weeps with religious feeling. He wants to study the cabbala (Jewish mysticism), but his father says he's too young. Despite this, Eliezer finds a teacher in town, a poor man named Moché the Beadle , and the two of them pore over cabbalistic questions. Eliezer's faith in God is shared by many of his fellow Jews in the town of Sighet. On the trains to the concentration camps, people discuss the banishment from their homes as trial sent from God to be endured—a test of faith.

But Eliezer's belief in God begins to falter at the concentration camps of Birkenau-Aushwitz. Here the furnaces are busy night and day burning people. Here he watches German soldiers throw truckloads of babies and small children into the flames. The longer he stays in the concentration camps, the more he sees and experiences cruelty and suffering. People treat others worse than they would livestock. He can no longer believe that a God who would permit such nightmare places to exist could be just. The fact that many Jews do continue to pray, to recite the Talmud, and to look for comfort in their faith while in the concentration camp amazes and confounds Eliezer. That people would still pray to a God who allows their families to be gassed and incinerated suggests to Eliezer that people are stronger and more forgiving than the God they pray to. Later, as more people die, and others around him lose hope, starve, and succumb, Eliezer ceases to believe that God could exist at all. He is not alone in his disillusionment. Akiba Drumer (whose faith helps Eliezer endure for a while) as well as a rabbi whom Eliezer talks to, also eventually come to believe that God's existence is impossible in a world that contains such a large-scale, willful horror as the Holocaust. The final nail in the coffin, for Eliezer's faith, comes at Buna, where the prisoners are gathered to watch the hanging of a young boy. A man in the crowd asks, "Where is God now?" Eliezer's internal response is that God is that boy on the gallows. The boy dies slowly as the prisoners are forced to watch.

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What to Do When You Feel You Are Losing Your Faith

Tiara Blain, MA, is a freelance writer for Verywell Mind. She is a health writer and researcher passionate about the mind-body connection, and holds a Master's degree in psychology.

Ivy Kwong, LMFT, is a psychotherapist specializing in relationships, love and intimacy, trauma and codependency, and AAPI mental health.  

Luis Alvarez / Getty Images

What Is Faith?

Why faith is important.

• Explanations

Living through a pandemic, natural disasters, racial discrimination, and the sporadic adversities that accompany everyday life, it can often feel as if you are losing your faith. You might not only lose faith in the higher power you worship, but you might also feel a loss of faith in humanity, loved ones, or in yourself.

Many people experience feelings like this, especially when it feels like you have no control over what is going on in your life and the world around you. It is when we are consumed by all the uncertainties of life that faith is needed most, but also when it’s the most difficult to grasp.

It’s definitely easier to have faith when everything is going well but it's a lot more challenging when they are not. That is why it is important for us to recognize when we start having these feelings and work towards reestablishing or holding on to our faith, especially during troubling times. 

At a Glance

Losing your faith can involve the loss of connection with the things you believe in, whether it's your religion, your values, or humankind. It can be a devastating feeling that undermines your confidence, convictions, and well-being. No matter why it's happening, there are steps you can take to cope. Acknowledging your emotions, reconnecting with spirituality, practicing gratitude, and finding social support may help. Let's take a closer look at why your faith might be floundering and what you can do about it.

First, let’s get into what faith is exactly. The term "faith" is defined as "a strong belief in something or someone" or a "belief in the existence of God; strong religious beliefs or feelings."

According to the Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers, faith is having belief in something without an apparent reason. The Christian Bible describes faith as "the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen." (Hebrew 11:1 KJV).

Most people correlate faith with trust in God, the Universe, or a Higher Power. Faith means believing in the existence and presence of our higher powers in our lives, even though we cannot physically see them.

Since a higher power is not something you see in the physical sense (as with other sources we put our trust in at times), if you no longer feel the impact of these things in your life, you may begin to lose faith in them.

Many religious texts associate faith with belief and trust in God and seeking God during times of hardship. The Christian Holy Bible’s book of Psalms as well as The Jewish sacred text, The Tanakh, book of Misheli says “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” (Psalms 56:3, Misheli 56:3)

There may be times when you don’t feel the presence of God or loved ones. It is actually when feeling a disconnect from these things that you can lean into your faith the most.

Most people express that they possess faith, but it is when faith is tested that one must put mere words into fruition. It is often when an individual has no reason to have faith in something, that they can actually practice the virtue of faith.

The Islamic Holy Quran states “But as for those who believe, and do good works — their Lord will guide them because of their faith.” (Quran, 10:10)

Believing that God will work a miracle during an insurmountable situation, having  confidence  that the impossible is possible, or trusting that what is happening is part of a greater plan—these are examples of faith. 

Having faith, whether it is in a religious belief or in yourself, gives you a sense of confidence, belongingness, and conviction. Such faith can give you the resolve and strength to remain resilient in adversity.

Research has also shown that having faith can positively affect physical and mental health.

Losing your faith can take a toll on your resilience and undermine your sense of belongingness. But it can also be an opportunity to grow, build a stronger sense of self-awareness, and cultivate new beliefs that are more closely aligned with your current values, goals, and needs.

Reasons You May Feel A Loss of Faith

There are various reasons why one may begin to feel a loss of faith. Some examples are: 

• Depression  
• Uncertainty 
• Trauma  
• Betrayal 

Major life changes can also cause you to reassess your beliefs. For example, divorce, job loss, or the death of a loved one might shake up your spiritual convictions.

People also lose faith if they reevaluate their beliefs in light of new information. Encountering people who don't uphold the values they claim to believe in can shake up a person's sense of faith. Witnessing hypocrisy or abuse among faith leaders or learning information contradicting your previous beliefs can also create a crisis of faith.

These challenges can make it harder to feel the faith you used to experience. They can also contribute to symptoms of apathy and anhedonia that make it difficult to care about things you used to be concerned with.

Faith is very important in spirituality , which benefits mental and physical well-being. One older study found that participation in spiritual activities was beneficial for those who felt depression was caused by losing faith.

Many often equate depressive feelings with loss of faith. Religious struggles are also associated with higher levels of depression.

If ever you feel that you are losing your faith, you may want to consider the following suggestions.

Acknowledge and Accept What You Feel

In these moments it is important to first not judge yourself for these feelings. They are justifiable, and you shouldn’t feel guilt or shame . Accept that these are your feelings and show yourself compassion .

It’s best to acknowledge what you are feeling, accept them for what they are, and then address them by exploring what could be causing them. Then, you can seek help from others, like a loved one or counselor, if necessary. 

Try Meditation or Prayer

Take some time for yourself to meditate and pray. This can help you become more in tune with your spirituality and may be really impactful when feeling as if you are losing faith.

Meditation  and prayer are excellent practices to connect with a higher power and your beliefs because they can deepen presence, acceptance, and peace.

Count Your Blessings

Gratitude goes a long way! Whenever you feel a bit lost or unfulfilled, try to think about the people and things in your life that you are grateful for. There is always something in life to appreciate; sometimes, it requires taking a step back to acknowledge what is right in front of us.

Experiencing gratitude can have powerful effects on your mental well-being. So, try writing in a gratitude journal to list out everything you feel grateful for.

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This episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast shares five mental strength exercises you can do right from your couch (like practicing gratitude). Click below to listen now.

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Talk It Out

Think about reaching out to someone you trust for advice. If you are feeling confused or overwhelmed, sometimes it helps to talk these things out and seek opinions from reliable sources.

There are times in everyone's lives when they can use a listening ear and open arms from the people they care for. Sometimes people put up a tough exterior and don’t reach out to people who genuinely do care because they don’t want to burden them or show vulnerability.

It may be time to let down walls and open up about your feelings. You never know, that person might need this talk just as much as you do.

Spend Time With Loved Ones

At times when an individual isn't feeling their best, they shouldn't rule out the option of simply getting together with people that it just feels good to be around.

Social support is often an impactful aspect of a person's spiritual being that offers great benefits to quality of life. A community of people who are there for one another, who show up when it matters, and put in the effort to positively influence each other's lives is what social support is all about.

During difficult times, support systems live up to their role in an individual's life.  A little social interaction with those that you enjoy spending time with may just help you feel more connected to spirituality and faith. 

Consider Counseling

A faith-based therapist or a spiritual counselor can help you discover why you might be feeling that you are losing your faith. In your sessions, you will be able to safely sort out your emotions and feel them without judgment.

Engaging in counseling or therapy may support you in deepening your understanding of your relationship with your faith. If your faith has been shaken or broken, it may take some time to heal and recover your faith, and you are encouraged in being patient with yourself and the process.

Engage in Acts of Kindness

Sometimes all of the troubling circumstances that are going on around someone begin to get to them more than they realize. When the world begins to look hopeless it may be beneficial for a person to feel as if they have some control of the good being contributed to the world.

Engaging in genuine acts of kindness , like volunteer work or donations, may help put a little faith back into humanity. Acts of kindness are associated with life satisfaction.

With acts of kindness, people are able to get out of their own heads and be reminded that they are a part of the bigger picture.

Attend a Place of Worship

Religious institutions—such as a church, temple, mosque, synagogue, or other place of worship—represent a community of people with a shared belief that can commune together in worship and the enrichment of faith.

Gathering with those who have similar beliefs as yourself can help when you feel you are losing your faith.

Research shows that, when people attend church, they often feel a sense of encouragement, strength, belongingness. Moreover, faith in their higher power might even be restored.

Take a Break

Sometimes people need a reset button to remember who they are and what they believe in. It is easy to become so wrapped up in everyday life that a person begins to lose touch with themselves and their faith.

This is why it’s important to take a break from daily routine and take a breather. Consider spending some time in nature , which is a great way of connecting with your spirituality. Doing so may offer a sense of serenity.

You may even want to consider a nature retreat or small getaway to reconnect with yourself and what matters most to you. 

Take The Time to Reflect

Take the time to consider what in particular could be the source of you feeling the way you do. It is possible that it is a variety of things in your life that are causing you to feel a loss of faith. Whether it is stress , trauma, grief, or just feeling a disconnect from God and the world around you, it is important to assess these emotions .

Speaking with a therapist or loved one can also help determine what makes you feel this way and better understand why.

Reflecting on your relationship with God and your belief systems may be beneficial. Others may have significantly influenced your faith more than you realize or are comfortable with. It is normal to have religious beliefs taught during childhood and throughout your life that may conflict with you or no longer resonate during this time.

Remember that your beliefs and faith can develop or change as you grow, so try not to be  judgmental  of yourself if they evolve. Take time to reflect on what you believe, what is working, what is no longer working, and what you feel may be the best way to proceed.

Keep in Mind

Feeling lost, uneasy, and withdrawn happens to the best of us, sometimes at the most unexpected times. Although one does not always have control over what is going on in the world around them or even situations happening in their own lives, they do have authority over how they perceive and react to these experiences.

One should not judge or dismiss their feelings, but it is, however, important that they don’t dwell on thoughts that result in amplifying  negative emotions  too long, because it is easy to become overwhelmed by them.

When challenging moments do appear, consider engaging in activities that help you reconnect with yourself, those you care about, and your relationship with your ever-evolving spirituality and faith.

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Wittink MN, Joo JH, Lewis LM, et al. Losing Faith and Using Faith: Older African Americans Discuss Spirituality, Religious Activities, and Depression. J Gen Intern Med. 2009; 24(402). doi:10.1007/s11606-008-0897-1

Lucchetti G, Koenig HG, Lucchetti ALG. Spirituality, religiousness, and mental health: A review of the current scientific evidence .  World J Clin Cases . 2021;9(26):7620-7631. doi:10.12998/wjcc.v9.i26.7620

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Chollou KM, Shirzadi S, Pourrazavi S, Babazadeh T, Ranjbaran S. The role of perceived social support on quality of life in people with cardiovascular diseases .  Ethiop J Health Sci . 2022;32(5):1019-1026. doi:10.4314/ejhs.v32i5.17

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Grim BJ, Grim ME. Belief, behavior, and belonging: How faith is indispensable in preventing and recovering from substance abuse [published correction appears in J Relig Health. 2019 Aug 21;:].  J Relig Health . 2019;58(5):1713-1750. doi:10.1007/s10943-019-00876-w

By Tiara Blain, MA Tiara Blain, MA, is a freelance writer for Verywell Mind. She is a health writer and researcher passionate about the mind-body connection, and holds a Master's degree in psychology.

Home — Essay Samples — History — Elie Wiesel — The Loss Of Faith In God In The Book Night By Elie Wiesel

The Loss of Faith in God in The Book Night by Elie Wiesel

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Published: Mar 18, 2021

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Works Cited:

• Edgar Allan Poe. (1843). The tell-tale heart. The Pioneer, 1(5), 287-292.
• Miller, A. (1953). The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts. Viking Press.
• Murfin, R. (2003). A student's guide to Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Heinemann.
• Poe, E. A. (2010). The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings. Simon and Schuster.
• Pritchard, W. H. (1954). The Crucible of History: Arthur Miller's John Proctor. The New England Quarterly, 27(4), 461-472.
• Rollyson, C. G. (2006). The Life of William Faulkner : A Critical Biography. John Wiley & Sons.
• Sweeney, S. (1996). Arthur Miller's The Crucible : Background and sources. Routledge.
• Toker, L. (1991). Arthur Miller's the Crucible. Routledge.
• Ward, B. (2003). The crucible: An overview. In Arthur Miller's The Crucible (pp. 1-16). Routledge.

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Losing Your Faith May Be God’s Gift to You

Two weeks ago, I was asked to be a guest on the Chris Fabry show . I always enjoy talking with Chris, and we had a good conversation about some perspectives related to the coronavirus crisis. (You can listen to our 21-minute conversation here .)

One thing that came up as we talked was that Scripture makes it clear God’s people will face great suffering, as some are right now. As serious as suffering is, it’s always struck me as a bit humorous when Peter writes, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you ” (1 Peter 4:12, emphasis added).

Unfortunately, if our theology hasn’t prepared us for suffering, we may be more than just surprised when trials come our way. We might feel as though our faith—and God Himself—has let us down.

In my book If God Is Good , I write this:

A faith that leaves us unprepared for suffering is a false faith that deserves to be lost. A lot of bad theology inevitably surfaces when we face suffering. John Piper writes, “Wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians. And wimpy Christians won’t survive the days ahead.” Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl wrote, “Just as the small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it, likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicaments and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.” When people lose their faith because of suffering, it’s usually a weak or nominal faith that doesn’t account for or prepare them for evil and suffering. I believe that any faith not based on the truth needs to be lost. The sooner, the better. Believing God exists is not the same as trusting the God who exists. A nominal Christian often discovers in suffering that his faith has been in his church, denomination, or family tradition, but not Christ. As he faces evil and suffering, he may lose his faith. But that’s actually a good thing. I have sympathy for people who lose their faith, but any faith lost in suffering wasn’t a faith worth keeping. (Genuine faith will be tested; false faith will be lost.) If you base your faith on lack of affliction, your faith lives on the brink of extinction and will fall apart because of a frightening diagnosis or a shattering phone call. Token faith will not survive suffering, nor should it. Suffering and evil exert a force that either pushes us away from God or pulls us toward him. I know a man who lost his faith after facing terrible evil, suffering, and injustice. My heart breaks for him, and I pray that my family and I will never suffer what he did. But if personal suffering gives sufficient evidence that God doesn’t exist, then surely I shouldn’t wait until I suffer to conclude he’s a myth. If my suffering would one day justify denying God, then I should deny him now in light of other people’s suffering. The devastation of tragedy feels just as real for people whose faith endures suf­fering. But because they know that others have suffered and learned to trust God anyway, they can apply that trust to God as they face their own disasters. Because they do not place their hope for health and abundance and secure relationships in this life, but in an eternal life to come, their hope remains firm regardless of what happens. Losing your faith may be God’s gift to you. Only when you jettison ungrounded and untrue faith can you replace it with valid faith in the true God—faith that can pass, and even find strength in, the most formidable of life’s tests. In her moving book The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion writes about the sudden, unexpected death of her husband. As I read, my heart broke not only for what happened to her, but for the first six words of the book’s concluding sen­tence: “No eye is on the sparrow.” Didion apparently means that so far as she can tell, there is no God, or at least, no God who cares and watches over us. She’s most likely a normal hurting person who needs men and women around her who can see God in the midst of their suffering, so they might help her see him in hers.

As I told Chris, there are probably many people who need to lose their faith—because their faith is in the wrong thing. I believe God can use this crisis to topple our idols, including but not limited to the idols of health and wealth, and clear the way for us to embrace genuine trust in Christ.

So let’s fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Let’s make Him the object of our faith. He will support us and sustain us and be there for us in a way that no other object of faith can.

Photo by  Dawid Zawiła  on  Unsplash

Randy Alcorn ( @randyalcorn ) is the author of over sixty  books and the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries . 

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Why Does a Biblical Theology of Suffering Matter?

God’s Unseen Intervention

Freedom and Comfort in Truth

Why Am I Losing Faith In God? And How Should I Cope With it?

Losing faith in God can be a deeply distressing and confusing experience. It can shake the foundations of one’s belief system and leave us grappling with existential questions. While the reasons for losing faith in God can vary from person to person, it is essential to acknowledge and explore these doubts and struggles with an open mind.

Why Am I Losing Faith In God – Possible Reasons Explored

Some of the most likely reasons why you could be losing faith in God are:

1. Personal Loss or Trauma

2. unanswered prayers.

Longing for specific outcomes or solutions through prayer and feeling like those prayers have gone unanswered can be deeply disheartening. When heartfelt prayers seemingly go unacknowledged, doubts about the effectiveness or responsiveness of prayer can arise.

3. Intellectual or Philosophical Doubts

Engaging in critical thinking, exploring different belief systems, or encountering philosophical challenges can introduce doubts about the existence or nature of God.

Scientific advancements or discoveries may also clash with certain religious teachings, prompting individuals to reevaluate their beliefs and wrestle with intellectual conflicts.

4. Moral or Ethical Dilemmas

Witnessing or experiencing moral and ethical contradictions within religious institutions or struggling with ethical dilemmas in personal life can severely impact one’s faith.

Instances of hypocrisy, misconduct, or scandals involving religious leaders or communities can create cognitive dissonance and erode trust.

5. Lack of Personal Experience or Connection

Some individuals may find it challenging to maintain faith due to a lack of personal experiences or a sense of connection with God. If there has been no tangible or profound spiritual encounter, such as a transcendent moment, a deep sense of inner peace, or a transformative experience, it can be difficult to sustain belief in something intangible.

6. Religious or Spiritual Hypocrisy

Instances where professed beliefs are not reflected in actions, such as dishonesty, judgment, or discrimination, can undermine individuals’ trust and confidence in religious institutions.

7. Cultural or Societal Influences

Cultural or societal factors play a significant role in shaping individuals’ beliefs and attitudes towards faith. Secularization, changing societal norms, or exposure to alternative belief systems may create tensions and doubts about traditional religious beliefs.

Cultural shifts can challenge long-held convictions and prompt individuals to reevaluate their faith in light of evolving perspectives and social changes, contributing to a struggle with belief in God.

8. Personal Disappointments

9. lack of empirical evidence.

Some individuals may approach belief in God from a perspective that requires empirical evidence or tangible proof. The absence of concrete evidence can foster skepticism and doubts about the existence or relevance of a higher power.

10. Emotional or Psychological Factors

Emotional pain, existential doubts, or a feeling of disconnection from oneself and the world can blur one’s spiritual lens, making it challenging to lean on faith during difficult times.

Practical Strategies to Cope With Loss of Faith

#1. seek support.

Having someone to confide in and share your journey with can be immensely comforting and validating. They can offer emotional support, guidance, and perspectives that may help you navigate your loss of faith.

#2. Engage in Self-Reflection

Engaging in practices such as meditation or mindfulness can also provide a space for quiet contemplation and self-awareness. By exploring your thoughts and emotions, you can gain deeper insights into your own spiritual journey and uncover new avenues for growth.

#3. Educate Yourself

Expand your knowledge by reading books, articles, or listening to podcasts that explore various perspectives on faith, spirituality, and religion.

#4. Seek Guidance

Consider seeking guidance from a spiritual mentor, counselor, or clergy member who can provide support and guidance during your journey of faith exploration.

They can offer a listening ear, share their wisdom, and help you navigate your doubts and questions. A trusted spiritual guide can provide valuable insights, offer different perspectives, and help you find meaning and purpose in your evolving beliefs.

#5. Explore New Spiritual Practices

#6. connect with nature.

Spend time in nature, as it can be a source of solace, inspiration, and connection. Nature has a way of evoking a sense of awe, wonder, and interconnectedness.

#7. Embrace Doubt as Part of the Journey

It’s okay to not have all the answers or to be uncertain about your beliefs. Embracing doubt with an open mind can lead to deeper insights, new perspectives, and a more authentic and resilient faith.

#8. Practice Self-Compassion

Allow yourself the freedom to explore and redefine your beliefs without judgment or self-criticism. Show yourself the same love and understanding that you would offer to a dear friend facing similar struggles.

#9. Engage in Meaningful Activities

Engage in activities that bring you joy, purpose, and a sense of fulfillment. Volunteer for causes you care about, pursue hobbies or creative outlets, or lend a helping hand to others in need.

#10. Give Yourself Time and Space

Allow yourself the freedom to explore different paths, ideologies, and perspectives without rushing to find definitive answers. Trust the process and have faith in your own capacity to find a renewed sense of spiritual connection and meaning in your life.

Tips for Rebuilding Your Relationship with God

1. reflect on your journey.

Take time to reflect on your experiences, doubts, and the reasons behind your loss of faith. Understand that your spiritual journey is unique and that your path may involve detours and challenges. Reflecting on your journey can provide valuable insights and help you identify areas where you may need to heal or grow.

2. Seek Inner Healing

3. start with openness and honesty, 4. engage in prayer and meditation.

Prayer and meditation can be powerful practices to reconnect with your spiritual self and open the door to a deeper connection with God. Set aside regular time for prayer and meditation, allowing yourself to be still and present in the presence of the divine. Listen for guidance and speak from your heart, expressing your hopes, fears, and gratitude.

5. Study Sacred Texts

6. cultivate a spirit of gratitude, 7. participate in worship and community.

Engage in communal worship and connect with a faith community that aligns with your beliefs and values. Joining others in prayer, worship services, or spiritual gatherings can provide a supportive environment for nurturing your relationship with God. It allows you to connect with like-minded individuals who can provide encouragement, support, and shared experiences.

8. Seek Guidance from Spiritual Leaders

9. embrace spirituality in everyday life, 10. be patient and gentle with yourself.

Rebuilding a relationship with God is a process that takes time and patience. Be gentle with yourself and embrace the journey as it unfolds. Allow yourself space for growth, understanding, and even moments of doubt. Trust that God’s love and grace are always available to guide you as you navigate this transformative path.

The practical strategies provided in this article offer guidance and support, empowering individuals to navigate their doubts and find a renewed sense of spiritual connection. Remember, this journey is unique to each person, and embracing it with an open mind and a compassionate heart can lead to a deeper understanding of oneself and the possibility of rediscovering faith in a meaningful way.

Growing My Faith in the Face of Death

I spent a lifetime counseling others before my diagnosis. Will I be able to take my own advice?

I have spent a good part of my life talking with people about the role of faith in the face of imminent death. Since I became an ordained Presbyterian minister in 1975, I have sat at countless bedsides, and occasionally even watched someone take their final breath. I recently wrote a small book, On Death , relating a lot of what I say to people in such times. But when, a little more than a month after that book was published, I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I was still caught unprepared.

On the way home from a conference of Asian Christians in Kuala Lumpur in February 2020, I developed an intestinal infection. A scan at the hospital showed what looked like enlarged lymph nodes in my abdomen: No cause for concern, but come back in three months just to check . My book was published. And then, while all of us in New York City were trying to protect ourselves from COVID-19, I learned that I already had an agent of death growing inside me.

I spent a few harrowing minutes looking online at the dire survival statistics for pancreatic cancer, and caught a glimpse of On Death on a table nearby. I didn’t dare open it to read what I’d written.

My wife, Kathy, and I spent much time in tears and disbelief. We were both turning 70, but felt strong, clear-minded, and capable of nearly all the things we have done for the past 50 years. “I thought we’d feel a lot older when we got to this age,” Kathy said. We had plenty of plans and lots of comforts, especially our children and grandchildren. We expected some illness to come and take us when we felt really old. But not now, not yet. This couldn’t be; what was God doing to us? The Bible, and especially the Psalms, gave voice to our feelings: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?” “Wake up, O Lord. Why are you sleeping?” “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?”

A significant number of believers in God find their faith shaken or destroyed when they learn that they will die at a time and in a way that seems unfair to them. Before my diagnosis, I had seen this in people of many faiths. One woman with cancer told me years ago, “I’m not a believer anymore—that doesn’t work for me. I can’t believe in a personal God who would do something like this to me.” Cancer killed her God.

What would happen to me? I felt like a surgeon who was suddenly on the operating table. Would I be able to take my own advice?

One of the first things I learned was that religious faith does not automatically provide solace in times of crisis. A belief in God and an afterlife does not become spontaneously comforting and existentially strengthening. Despite my rational, conscious acknowledgment that I would die someday, the shattering reality of a fatal diagnosis provoked a remarkably strong psychological denial of mortality. Instead of acting on Dylan Thomas’s advice to “rage, rage against the dying of the light,” I found myself thinking, What? No! I can’t die. That happens to others, but not to me . When I said these outrageous words out loud, I realized that this delusion had been the actual operating principle of my heart.

The cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker argued that the denial of death dominates our culture, but even if he was right that modern life has heightened this denial, it has always been with us. As the 16th-century Protestant theologian John Calvin wrote, “We undertake all things as if we were establishing immortality for ourselves on earth. If we see a dead body, we may philosophize briefly about the fleeting nature of life, but the moment we turn away from the sight the thought of our own perpetuity remains fixed in our minds.” Death is an abstraction to us, something technically true but unimaginable as a personal reality.

Read: When medicine and faith define death differently

For the same reason, our beliefs about God and an afterlife, if we have them, are often abstractions as well. If we don’t accept the reality of death, we don’t need these beliefs to be anything other than mental assents. A feigned battle in a play or a movie requires only stage props. But as death, the last enemy, became real to my heart, I realized that my beliefs would have to become just as real to my heart, or I wouldn’t be able to get through the day. Theoretical ideas about God’s love and the future resurrection had to become life-gripping truths, or be discarded as useless.

I’ve watched many others partake of this denial of death and then struggle when their convictions evaporate, and not just among the religious. I spent time as a pastor with sick and dying people whose religious faith was nominal or nonexistent. Many had a set of beliefs about the universe, even if they went largely unacknowledged—that the material world came into being on its own and that there is no supernatural world we go to after death. Death, in this view, is simply nonexistence, and therefore, as the writer Julian Barnes has argued, nothing to be frightened of. These ideas are items of faith that can’t be proved, and people use them as Barnes does, to stave off fear of death. But I’ve found that nonreligious people who think such secular beliefs will be comforting often find that they crumple when confronted by the real thing.

So when the certainty of your mortality and death finally breaks through, is there a way to face it without debilitating fear? Is there a way to spend the time you have left growing into greater grace, love, and wisdom? I believe there is, but it requires both intellectual and emotional engagement: head work and heart work .

I use the terms head and heart to mean reasoning and feeling, adapting to the modern view that these two things are independent faculties. The Hebrew scriptures, however, see the heart as the seat of the mind, will, and emotions. Proverbs says, “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” In other words, rational conviction and experience might change my mind, but the shift would not be complete until it took root in my heart. And so I set out to reexamine my convictions and to strengthen my faith, so that it might prove more than a match for death.

P aul Brand , an orthopedic surgeon, spent the first part of his medical career in India and the last part of his career in the U.S. “In the United States … I encountered a society that seeks to avoid pain at all costs,” he wrote in his recent memoir . “Patients lived at a greater comfort level than any I had previously treated, but they seemed far less equipped to handle suffering and far more traumatized by it.”

Why is it that people in prosperous, modern societies seem to struggle so much with the existence of evil, suffering, and death? In his book A Secular Age , the philosopher Charles Taylor wrote that while humans have always struggled with the ways and justice of God, until quite recently no one had concluded that suffering made the existence of God implausible. For millennia, people held a strong belief in their own inadequacy or sinfulness, and did not hold the modern assumption that we all deserve a comfortable life. Moreover, Taylor has argued, we have become so confident in our powers of logic that if we cannot imagine any good reason that suffering exists, we assume there can’t be one.

But if there is a God great enough to merit your anger over the suffering you witness or endure, then there is a God great enough to have reasons for allowing it that you can’t detect. It is not logical to believe in an infinite God and still be convinced that you can tally the sums of good and evil as he does, or to grow angry that he doesn’t always see things your way. Taylor’s point is that people say their suffering makes faith in God impossible—but it is in fact their overconfidence in themselves and their abilities that sets them up for anger, fear, and confusion.

When I got my cancer diagnosis, I had to look not only at my professed beliefs, which align with historical Protestant orthodoxy, but also at my actual understanding of God. Had it been shaped by my culture? Had I been slipping unconsciously into the supposition that God lived for me rather than I for him, that life should go well for me, that I knew better than God does how things should go? The answer was yes—to some degree. I found that to embrace God’s greatness, to say “Thy will be done,” was painful at first and then, perhaps counterintuitively, profoundly liberating. To assume that God is as small and finite as we are may feel freeing—but it offers no remedy for anger.

Another area of head work for me had to do with Jesus’s resurrection. Ironically, I had already begun working on a book about Easter. Before cancer, the resurrection had been a mostly theoretical issue for me—but not now. I’m familiar with the common charge that any belief in an afterlife is mere wish fulfillment without grounding in fact—and that belief in Jesus is in the same category as faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But over the past 20 years, I’ve been drawn to the work of the British biblical scholar N. T. Wright, who mounts a historical case for Jesus’s bodily resurrection.

Read: What people actually say before they die

I returned to his material now, with greater skepticism than I had previously applied. I didn’t want to be taken in. But as I reread his arguments, they seemed even more formidable and fair to me than they had in the past. They gave me a place to get my footing. Still, I needed more than mental assent to believe in the resurrection.

The heart work came in as I struggled to bridge the gap between an abstract belief and one that touches the imagination. As the early American philosopher Jonathan Edwards argued, it is one thing to believe with certainty that honey is sweet, perhaps through the universal testimony of trusted people, but it is another to actually taste the sweetness of honey. The sense of the honey’s sweetness on the tongue brings a fuller knowledge of honey than any rational deduction. In the same way, it is one thing to believe in a God who has attributes such as love, power, and wisdom; it is another to sense the reality of that God in your heart. The Bible is filled with sensory language. We are not only to believe that God is good but also to “taste” his goodness, the psalmist tells us; not just to believe that God is glorious and powerful but also to “see” it with “the eyes of the heart,” it says in Ephesians.

On December 6, 1273, Thomas Aquinas stopped writing his monumental Summa Theologiae . When asked why by his friend Reginald, he replied that he had had a beatific experience of God that made all his theology “seem like straw” by comparison. That was no repudiation of his theology, but Thomas had seen the difference between the map of God and God himself, and a very great difference it was. While I cannot claim that any of my experiences of God in the past several months have been “beatific,” they have been deeper and sweeter than I have known before.

My path to this has involved three disciplines.

The first was to immerse myself in the Psalms to be sure that I wasn’t encountering a God I had made up myself. Any God I make up will be less troubling and offensive, to be sure, but then how can such a God contradict me when my heart says that there’s no hope, or that I’m worthless? The Psalms show me a God maddening in his complexity, but this difficult deity comes across as a real being, not one any human would have conjured. Through the Psalms, I grew in confidence that I was before “him with whom we have to do.”

The second discipline was something that earlier writers like Edwards called spiritual “soliloquy.” You see it in Psalms 42 and 103, where the psalmist says, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?” and “Bless the Lord, O my soul. And forget not all his benefits.” The authors are addressing neither God nor their readers but their own souls, their selves . They are not so much listening to their hearts as talking to them. They are interrogating them and reminding them about God. They are taking truths about God and pressing them down deep into their hearts until they catch fire there.

I had to look hard at my deepest trusts, my strongest loves and fears, and bring them into contact with God. Sometimes—not always, or even usually—this leads, as the poet George Herbert wrote, to “a kind of tune … softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss, exalted manna … heaven in the ordinary.” But even though most days’ hour of Bible reading, meditation, soliloquy, and prayer doesn’t yield this kind of music, the reality of God and his promises grew on me. My imagination became more able to visualize the resurrection and rest my heart in it.

Most particularly for me as a Christian, Jesus’s costly love, death, and resurrection had become not just something I believed and filed away, but a hope that sustained me all day. I pray this prayer daily. Occasionally it electrifies, but ultimately it always calms:

And as I lay down in sleep and rose this morning only by your grace, keep me in the joyful, lively remembrance that whatever happens, I will someday know my final rising, because Jesus Christ lay down in death for me, and rose for my justification.

Read: Why I hope to die at 75

As this spiritual reality grows, what are the effects on how I live? One of the most difficult results to explain is what happened to my joys and fears. Since my diagnosis, Kathy and I have come to see that the more we tried to make a heaven out of this world—the more we grounded our comfort and security in it—the less we were able to enjoy it.

Kathy finds deep consolation and rest in the familiar, comforting places where we vacation. Some of them are shacks with bare light bulbs on wires, but they are her Sehnsucht locations—the spaces for which she longs. My pseudo-salvations are professional goals and accomplishments—another book, a new ministry project, another milestone at the church. For these reasons we found that when we got to the end of a vacation at the beach, our responses were both opposite and yet strangely the same.

Kathy would begin to mourn the need to depart almost as soon as she arrived, which made it impossible for her to fully enjoy herself. She would fantasize about handcuffing herself to the porch railing and refusing to budge. I, however, would always chafe and be eager to get back to work. I spent much of the time at the beach brainstorming and writing out plans. Neither of us learned to savor the moment, and so we never came home refreshed.

A short, green Jedi Master’s words applied to me perfectly: “All his life has he looked away to the future, the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. ” Kathy and I should have known better. We did know better. When we turn good things into ultimate things, when we make them our greatest consolations and loves, they will necessarily disappoint us bitterly. “Thou hast made us for thyself,” Augustine said in his most famous sentence, “and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” The 18th-century hymn writer John Newton depicted God as saying to the human soul, “These inward trials I employ from pride and self to set thee free, and break thy schemes of earthly joy that thou would find thine all in me.”

T o our surprise and encouragement, Kathy and I have discovered that the less we attempt to make this world into a heaven, the more we are able to enjoy it.

No longer are we burdening it with demands impossible for it to fulfill. We have found that the simplest things—from sun on the water and flowers in the vase to our own embraces, sex, and conversation—bring more joy than ever. This has taken us by surprise.

This change was not an overnight revolution. As God’s reality dawns more on my heart, slowly and painfully and through many tears, the simplest pleasures of this world have become sources of daily happiness. It is only as I have become, for lack of a better term, more heavenly minded that I can see the material world for the astonishingly good divine gift that it is.

I can sincerely say, without any sentimentality or exaggeration, that I’ve never been happier in my life, that I’ve never had more days filled with comfort. But it is equally true that I’ve never had so many days of grief. One of our dearest friends lost her husband to cancer six years ago. Even now, she says, she might seem fine, and then out of nowhere some reminder or thought will sideswipe her and cripple her with sorrow.

Yes. But I have come to be grateful for those sideswipes, because they remind me to reorient myself to the convictions of my head and the processes of my heart. When I take time to remember how to deal with my fears and savor my joys, the consolations are stronger and sweeter than ever.

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• Grief & Relationships

What Can You Do If You Lose Faith After a Loved One Dies?

Updated 06/15/2022

Published 12/2/2020

Dr. Alejandra Vasquez, JD, CT

Certified Grief Counselor

Cake values integrity and transparency. We follow a strict editorial process to provide you with the best content possible. We also may earn commission from purchases made through affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Learn more in our affiliate disclosure .

People of faith don’t always accept their losses quietly and calmly. A faithful person’s heartaches and pains hurt them just as much as someone who doesn’t count on spirituality or religion in their lives. When someone you love dies, grief is a natural reaction to loss no matter what you believe in.

Jump ahead to these sections:

Why do people question their faith or god after a death or tragedy, how to regain your faith after the death of a loved one.

Getting angry at God and questioning your faith after your loved one's death is also very normal as part of the struggle to make sense of their death.

Religion can be incredibly comforting at times of loss, especially when you feel devastated and broken inside. But it can also leave you confused with a profound sense of emptiness when your beliefs can’t help you acknowledge or accept your loss. 

Blaming your faith or God for the death of someone you love is a natural reaction to grief. It's normal for people to go through spiritual trials after suffering loss, question their faith, and go through denial and anger at God as they try to reconcile their grief.

Grief can cause you to confuse your feelings toward your faith and religion as the death of your loved one brings about a crisis of faith.

A faith crisis can happen to anyone at any time, but even more so when they’ve lost someone they love. Regaining your faith after tragedy and loss requires you to reconnect with your beliefs and your higher power. Healing, reflection, and prayer are all a part of the process to get you back on track to finding solace and comfort in what you once relied on to get you through. 

Even with all that work to reconnect, you may never find your way back to the level of spiritual devotion you may have enjoyed before your loved one’s death. You can expect to go through many different emotional ups and downs and feel a particular spiritual turmoil for some time. 

The following may help you reclaim your faith when your soul needs healing most. 

1. Give yourself time to heal

Anyone who has lost a loved one has a long and challenging journey ahead of them toward healing. The first few days and weeks after suffering a loss, you can expect yourself to shut down emotionally and withdraw from others. Be patient with yourself when you’re mourning the death of your loved one.

This is a terribly sad and painful experience in your life that will take time to heal from. The grief process will take you through stages where you’ll lose and regain your faith. Give yourself time to work through your grief.

2. Reflect on your grief

Grief will strike you in some of the most unexpected ways. You’ll go from feeling numb after someone you love dies , crying uncontrollably, to shouting in anger at the top of your lungs. 

The expression of these emotions is necessary as you reflect on your grief. Not only are tears cleansing and healing, but the unleashing of bottled up emotions will help you progress through your grief.

Take the time needed to be with yourself in your grief. Think about all the reasons why you’ve lost your faith, and meditate on them. You don’t need to pressure yourself to find the answers. 

Hope is the foundation of faith and religion. Prayer is the act of asking for help or guidance in your time of need. Offering up some prayers helps you connect with the divine, and to connect with your higher power. When you take time out for prayer, even when you’re not feeling confident in your faith, you’re making an effort to connect to your faith and a higher power.

Prayer helps heal you and can lift you out of depression and anger. If you can’t find it in you to pray, consider repeating grief affirmations to get you through your sorrow.

4. Accept your anger

It is important to remember that anger and confusion after the death of a loved one are normal and healthy grief reactions. During these moments you may find yourself lashing out at God questioning, “How can you do this to me? Why have you forsaken me?” 

Feelings of anger can sometimes stem from feeling betrayed by your faith and higher power. It’s not uncommon to be incredibly angry, especially in the beginning. To make progress with your grief, you’ll need to face your pain. Anger can be a positive emotion that propels you toward healing. 

5. Talk to God

God understands your pain and wants you to express how you feel, even when you’re feeling angry. You may start to question the purpose of everything after your loss.

Asking God directly for answers and praying for the strength to see you through your grief will help you begin to make sense of why things had to happen the way they did. You may not get all the answers that you’re looking for, but opening up a dialogue with your higher power will give you some peace and comfort as you grieve your loss.

6. Let others believe for you

When you lean on your faith and beliefs, you may be looking for and wanting serenity. Instead, you go through several stages of grief and rough emotion before you can accept your loss and regain peace. During this time, it’s essential that you ask for and receive others’ help when needed.

Ask your congregation or those of your friends who are spiritual to pray for you. Ask them to carry your weight until you’re strong enough to walk alone in your faith. If this means accepting their help with your household, taking care of personal chores for you, or holding special prayer circles, accept their help with grace and gratitude. There may come a time when someone else will ask you to be that support for them. 

7. Rely on your faith

Your crisis in faith will not get bolstered by reading philosophical or academic texts on grief and bereavement alone. You’ll have to choose to rely on your faith to get you through the darkest hours of your pain and suffering. 

Some of the best types of reading for someone who’s lost their faith in God after a loved one dies are spiritual and religious texts that touch on people who were suffering and who were also angry and confused by God’s promises. These stories and parables talk not only of faith but of God’s love and understanding. These books can help you recognize that you’re not walking alone in your grief. 

8. Seek spiritual advice 

If you’re struggling with opening up to your support group and letting them in on your loss of faith, ask a trusted source for spiritual advice and guidance. You may want to go outside of your immediate religious or spiritual circle so that you feel more comfortable talking openly about your confusion and loss of faith.

An alternative to seeking advice from clergy or other religious leaders is seeking spiritual online therapy or counseling . A spiritual grief counselor is trained in advising from a religious or spiritual perspective in a grief-related context. 

9. Find peace 

Losing someone you love can produce a heart-wrenching pain that brings you to your knees in suffering, in some cases quite literally. Be gentle with yourself in the first few days and weeks following your loved one’s death.

It’s easy to be your own harshest critic in the early days following a loss. Try not to blame yourself, your faith, or beliefs for this loss. Sometimes there are no answers to why things had to happen the way they did. Finding peace leads to acceptance, which leads to healing. 

10. Find meaning

When you’ve lost your faith, it might seem as if your life no longer has meaning. Finding a way to bring meaning to your suffering may involve sitting together with God or your higher power in prayerful contemplation of your loss.

As much as it hurts to lose the person you love, it sometimes clouds your thinking and confuses your thought process. Feeling angry at everyone and everything is unavoidable when in mourning. 

11. Honor your journey

Grief can sometimes feel as if it’s a journey of brokenness and healing and back again. You’ll go through a transformation from the moment you receive the news of your loved one’s death. Expect that you’ll never be the same person you were before your loss. The best way to get past your grief is to get through it.

That journey is different for everyone. Your path toward healing may differ significantly from others that are also suffering alongside you. It is important to remember that you don’t need to compare your grief to theirs. Honor your individual journey and accept the personal changes that you’ll go through as they occur. 

Losing Faith in God 

The relationship between grief and belief can be a tumultuous one after the death of a loved one. Your suffering and your pain shouldn’t be separate from your faith. Losing your faith and being angry at God, followed by a reconciliation of that anger, is part of the grief cycle.

Your faith will be there to love you and understand your grief, even when your loved one’s death doesn’t make sense from an earthly perspective. In time and with the help of your support group, you’ll figure out new ways to bond with your religion after you’ve had time to work through your loss.

If you're looking for more grief resources, read our guides on delayed grief and grief and insomnia .

Categories:

• Coping With Grief

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How to Practice Self-Care While Grieving: Step-By-Step

Grief Affirmations Explained: 13 Affirmations for Coping

How to Cope When Someone You Love Dies: Step-By-Step

Feeling Stuck in Your Grief After a Death? 10 Tips to Help

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Why Are Companies That Lose Money Still So Successful?

• Vijay Govindarajan,
• Shivaram Rajgopal,
• Anup Srivastava,
• Aneel Iqbal,
• Elnaz Basirian

New research on how to identify investments that produce delayed but real profits — not just those that produce short-term accounting profits.

In a well-functioning capital market, profits should be the sole criterion for firm survival; that is, firms reporting losses should disappear. Of late, however, loss-making firms are highly sought after by investors — often more than some profitable firms. Unicorns, or startups with valuations exceeding a billion dollars, are examples of such loss-making firms. What has changed over time? When and why did losses lose their meaning? The authors’ series of new research papers provide some answers, guiding managers to make the right investments: those that produce delayed but real profits — not just those that produce short-term accounting profits but decimate shareholder wealth in long run.

In 1979, psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky famously posited that losses loom larger than gains in human decision-making. For example, a dollar of loss affects our behavior more than a dollar of profits . Likewise, when a firm announces losses, its stock price declines more dramatically than it increases for the same dollar amount of profits. Investors abandon and lenders tend to stop financing loss-making firms , which then start restructuring their business lines and laying off employees. Some firms go even further, conducting M&A transactions without substance and “managing earnings” to report profits instead of a loss.

• Vijay Govindarajan is the Coxe Distinguished Professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, an executive fellow at Harvard Business School, and faculty partner at the Silicon Valley incubator Mach 49. He is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. His latest book is Fusion Strategy: How Real-Time Data and AI Will Power the Industrial Future . His Harvard Business Review articles “ Engineering Reverse Innovations ” and “ Stop the Innovation Wars ” won McKinsey Awards for best article published in HBR. His HBR articles “ How GE Is Disrupting Itself ” and “ The CEO’s Role in Business Model Reinvention ” are HBR all-time top-50 bestsellers. Follow him on LinkedIn . vgovindarajan
• Shivaram Rajgopal is the Roy Bernard Kester and T.W. Byrnes Professor of Accounting and Auditing and Vice Dean of Research at Columbia Business School. His research examines financial reporting and executive compensation issues and he is widely published in both accounting and finance.
• Anup Srivastava holds Canada Research Chair in Accounting, Decision Making, and Capital Markets and is a full professor at Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary. In a series of HBR articles, he examines the management implications of digital disruption. He specializes in the valuation and financial reporting challenges of digital companies. Follow Anup on  LinkedIn .
• Aneel Iqbal is an assistant professor at Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University. He examines the accounting measurement and financial disclosures for new-economy firms and incorporates his wide-ranging industry experience into his research and teaching. He is a seasoned accounting and finance professional with diverse experience in auditing, financial analysis, business advisory, performance management, and executive training. Follow Aneel on LinkedIn .
• Elnaz Basirian is a PhD student at the Haskayne School of Business. She examines the influence and role of intangibles in accounting and finance, aimed at improving valuation and market efficiency. She brings a decade of work experience in international financial markets. Follow Elnaz on LinkedIn .

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Emergency Medical Care for Women and Their Preborn Children Affirmed by Bishop Burbidge After Supreme Court Decision

“The Catholic faith and Catholic hospitals unequivocally allow for procedures that are necessary to save the life of a pregnant mother in a medical emergency, even when they tragically result in the unintended loss of her preborn child,” Bishop Michael F. Burbidge explained in addressing Thursday’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON - “The Catholic faith and Catholic hospitals unequivocally allow for procedures that are necessary to save the life of a pregnant mother in a medical emergency, even when they tragically result in the unintended loss of her preborn child,” Bishop Michael F. Burbidge explained in addressing Thursday’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In dismissing Moyle v. United States without addressing the merits, the Court, for now, leaves in place a lower court ruling that the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) can in certain circumstances override state laws that protect preborn lives. Bishop Burbidge continued, “EMTALA was enacted to ensure access to emergency medical care for low-income persons, especially pregnant mothers, and the law expressly protects both the mother and her preborn child. Catholic hospitals have thus faithfully and effectively cared for patients under this law for decades, and we will work and pray to ensure that they remain free to do so. EMTALA should not be newly misconstrued to override state laws protecting life nor misunderstood to mandate the performance of direct abortions – which are always wrong – as opposed to morally acceptable procedures that are necessary to preserve a mother’s life but tragically would result in a loss of her child. We will continue to advocate for policies and practices that offer the best and most accessible care, especially in the most difficult of cases, to both women and preborn children.”

Bishop Burbidge of Arlington is chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Pro-Life Activities. The USCCB joined an amicus curiae brief in this litigation which may be read here .

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Olympic legends Michael Phelps and Allison Schmitt say they have lost faith in WADA ahead of Paris Games

Sport Olympic legends Michael Phelps and Allison Schmitt say they have lost faith in WADA ahead of Paris Games

US Olympic athletes have lost faith in the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to rid their sports of cheaters ahead of next month's Summer Games in Paris, two former gold medallists told a House subcommittee.

The testimony by Michael Phelps and Allison Schmitt followed revelations this spring that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for a banned heart medication ahead of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 but were allowed by WADA to compete. Five of those swimmers went on to win medals, including three golds.

Phelps is the most decorated swimmer in history and a 23-time Olympic gold medallist. Schmitt, a four-time gold medallist, was part of the US 800m freestyle relay team that finished a close second to China at the Tokyo Games. Both the Chinese and US teams broke the previous world record in the relay.

"We raced hard. We trained hard. We followed every protocol. We accepted our defeat with grace," Schmitt said. "Many of us will be haunted by this podium finish that may have been impacted by doping."

Eleven of the Chinese swimmers who tested positive ahead of Tokyo are set to compete again in Paris.

Phelps was joined by his wife, Nicole, and youngest son, Nico, who was born in January. He nodded in agreement multiple times as members of Congress criticised WADA and said Americans should be able to watch the Olympics without wondering if the competition is rigged.

Phelps expressed frustration that nothing had changed since he testified before the same subcommittee seven years ago about WADA's handling of Russian state-sponsored doping.

"Sitting here once again, it is clear to me that any attempts of reform at WADA have fallen short, and there are still deeply rooted, systemic problems that prove detrimental to the integrity of international sports and athletes' right to fair competition, time and time again," Phelps said.

The global doping regulator accepted Chinese anti-doping officials' conclusion that the 23 athletes had ingested the banned substance through contaminated food at a hotel. Independent anti-doping experts have questioned that finding, with US Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart calling it "outrageous."

"The banned drug, which is only available in pill form, somehow ended up in the kitchen of a hotel the swimmers were staying at," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., the chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, adding that WADA "somehow concluded this explanation was plausible."

WADA said COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in China prevented an "on the ground probe" of the positive tests and concluded that it could not disprove Chinese authorities' explanation.

WADA President Witold Banka was invited to testify Tuesday but declined.

"Unfortunately, there persists a narrative from some in the US suggesting that WADA somehow acted inappropriately or showed bias towards China, despite there being no evidence to support that theory," Banka said in a statement. "WADA understands the tense relationship that exists between the governments of China and U.S. and has no mandate to be part of that. It is not appropriate for anti-doping to be politicised in this way."

In response to criticism, WADA appointed an independent investigator, Swiss prosecutor Eric Cottier, to review its handling of the China case. Cottier was appointed on April 25 and was expected to deliver his findings within two months. His appointment, too, angered critics who pointed out his potential conflicts of interest.

The United States contributes more funding to WADA than any other country, including nearly $3.7 million this year. China has given WADA $1.8 million more than its required dues since 2018, Tygart noted in his testimony.

Tygart called on the US to condition its future funding of WADA on reforms at the agency.

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Tamayo Perry, 'Pirates of the Caribbean' actor and pro surfer, remembered as a 'bright soul' after deadly shark attack

In the days after Tamayo Perry's death in a shark attack, his wife and a longtime friend remembered the famed Hawaii surfer as a "bright soul" who was "larger than life."

Perry, a lifeguard who also appeared in some Hollywood movies, died Sunday after he was attacked by a shark while he was surfing on Oahu's North Shore during a break in his shift, friend and co-worker Jesse King said Wednesday.

Emilia Perry, Perry's wife, said that it was common for her husband to catch a wave on his break and that doing so is how lifeguards on the island "stay fit" to save surfers in 20-foot waves.

She said Sunday "was just like every other day." They started the morning with a kiss goodbye as he headed out for work.

King said Tamayo Perry clocked in for his shift at 8 a.m. and took a surf break later in the day. While he was out, said King — who works as a Honolulu lifeguard, as did Perry — they got a 911 call for a person who had been attacked by a shark.

"We got him, and nobody got a chance to say goodbye," King said of the incident, which he called horrific and tragic.

Emilia Perry said she got the news while she was in the car and had to "just go on autopilot" to get home, as tears were flowing and she was praying it couldn't be true.

"When I got home, it was real," she said. "But I also knew in my heart that he was really happy" because he made it to heaven.

Perry was a man of faith

Tamayo Perry was first and foremost a man of Christian faith, his wife and King said, adding that is what is holding them together.

King and Emilia Perry said they and their community are "brokenhearted," but "there's also this weird calmness that he's in a really beautiful place," Emilia Perry said.

Before he died, she said, he sent a message to some friends saying he is “excited, not scared,” to get to heaven.

Skilled surfer and lifeguard

He also excelled as a surfer and a lifeguard, and his faith was intermingled in those roles.

"It just takes a certain person and a special skill, because there's not many people that can tackle the North Shore as a lifeguard. It's definitely for the, you know, the top, the best of the best," Emilia Perry said.

She said her husband took pride in what he did, "no matter what it was.”

Perry had acting credits in "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" and "Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle," as well as on TV shows, including "Lost."

The Perrys ran a surf school together, where they taught "about ocean safety and awareness and keeping you safe whilst also having a good time," she said.

King said, "He would go and educate the public and talk to people and redirect them to a safer place and to prevent bad things from happening, and he saved countless lives doing a good job as a lifeguard."

Among the lifeguards, King said, there’s a sense that “there’s a void that’s never going to be filled."

"It’s something that everybody can aspire to, trying to fill those type of shoes and do as good of a job as he did,” he said.

'A bright soul'

Tamayo Perry "loved everybody, and everybody loved him in return, because they could all tell that's sincerely who he is," King said.

He said Perry was "a really fun friend" who thrived when he was interacting and engaging with people.

“Tamayo was a beacon of light; he’s just a bright soul. And anywhere he went, he lit up the room,” King said.

Emilia Perry said her husband was "larger than life." In their time together, they were able to "cram so much fun" into their international travels as surfers, which she called "just beautiful."

"I’m just really grateful for the 25 years I’ve had," but "I wish it was more," she said. "But you can’t change what’s happened. You know, you can’t go back in time."

Tamayo Perry's family and friends plan a surfers' paddle out ceremony and celebration of life for him on July 14, "but knowing his luck," Emilia Perry joked, "it might be 10-foot [waves] that day, right?"

Rebecca Cohen is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.

Associate Producer at NBC News