Abstract: Using the context of Easter, this personal essay explores perceptions of God’s presence and absence during human suffering. There is a theological thread that ties Christ’s suffering for our griefs and sorrows during his Atonement directly to his ability to succor us as we enter into despair due to our own trauma. Our suffering occurs during moments of transition and vulnerability known as “liminal spaces.” It is in these moments that the Savior meets us at the threshold, helping us move through trauma toward transformation in Christ. Our ability to move forward openly in liminal spaces will help us to recognize God’s presence in these moments as well as to discern the reflection of his presence in those who minister to us in our grief.





Today begins that sacred transitional space just before Easter that we refer to as Good Friday, the day on which Christians worldwide commemorate the Crucifixion of the Savior on Calvary. Good Friday is a threshold through which we enter a period of darkness, grief, and despair that is only overcome by the burst of light that arrives with the Resurrection on Easter Sunday.

During this time, I am thinking about Easter in the context of how Christ’s Atonement can lead to divine comfort and presence during sickness and sorrow. This is because, in my work as a chaplain in clinical settings, I often visit patients who have experienced significant trauma due to health issues, from amputations to open-heart surgeries, post-traumatic stress disorders, or perhaps the death of a loved [Page 252]one. As we sit together to process their grief, some of them turn to me, tears in their eyes, asking, “Where is God in my suffering?”

In my experience, this pleading usually addresses not the question of God’s existence but rather the timing of his perceived absence. In many instances, the patients I sit with have experienced a connection with the divine in the past but now feel alone and abandoned. This is a theme often explored in the Hebrew Bible. During several festivals throughout the year, Israelites were expected to gather at the temple to stand in God’s presence, often expressed as seeing (or seeking) God’s face.17:15 ; 27:8. For a treatment of this idea, see Andrew C. Skinner, “Seeing God in His Temple: A Significant Theme in Israel’s Psalms,” in Ascending the Mountain of the Lord: Temple, Praise, and Worship in the Old Testament (2013 Sperry Symposium), ed. Jeffrey R. Chadwick, Matthew J. Grey, and David Rolph Seely (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2013), 270–90, scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/3497/.">1 When they felt his absence, they would often cry out in distress, “Why do you hide your face?”88:14 [15]; Job 13:24 ). The numbers in brackets represent the versification in the Hebrew Bible. All biblical quotations are the author’s own translations.">2 Joseph Smith, experiencing prolonged suffering in a jail in Liberty, Missouri, had a similar plea: “O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:1).

Like the petitioners in the Psalms, and like Joseph Smith, I too have asked this question in similar moments of distress. Just over a year ago I found myself attending, within the space of a few days, the funerals of two different soldiers who had died by suicide. After the second service had finished, I found myself leaving the chapel and driving to my father’s grave. Once there, I stood by his headstone, tears flowing like a river, looking for comfort, and attempting to understand and process the wave of grief and sorrow that I felt. But more than that, I wanted to know where God’s presence was during the communal suffering that had spread through distraught families and our military formatio...