{"id":703,"date":"2009-02-11T17:17:33","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T17:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/amy-welborn-allowing-gratitude.html"},"modified":"2009-02-11T17:17:33","modified_gmt":"2009-02-11T17:17:33","slug":"amy-welborn-allowing-gratitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/amy-welborn-allowing-gratitude.html","title":{"rendered":"Amy Welborn, Gratitude & Fearlessness Amidst Unspeakable Grief"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Michael<\/a><\/span>
\nAmy Welborn, one of the most gifted religion bloggers on the internet, lost her husband, Michael Dubruiel<\/a> last week. He died on the treadmill at the gym. Two little boys. They’d just moved to Alabama for his new job. The tragedy of it is beyond comprehension for me.
\nBrilliant essayist that she is, Amy has been writing a bit about the experience. I don’t know whether writing these thoughts down is helping her but I think her words will help, and move, others. It’s worth reading her entire post about her drive to the funeral:<\/a><\/p>\n

There is a void, my best friend in the world is just – gone. But in this moment I am confronted with the question, most brutally asked, of whether I really do believe all that I say I believe. Into this time of strange, awful loss, Jesus stepped in. He wasted no time. He came immediately. His presence was real and vivid and in him the present and future, bound in love, moved close.
\nThe gratitude I felt for life now and forever and what had prepared us for this surged, I was tempted to push it away for the sake of propriety, for what is expected, for what was supposed to be normal – I was tempted to say, “Leave me” instead of accepting the Hand extended to me an to immediately allow him to define my life.
\nBut I did not give into that temptation, and a few hours later I was able to do what I dreaded, what I thought was undoable, to be in a mystery that was both presence and absence and to not be afraid. To not be afraid for him, and for the first time ever in my entire life – to not be afraid for myself , either.
\nAt last.
\n.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amy Welborn, one of the most gifted religion bloggers on the internet, lost her husband, Michael Dubruiel last week. He died on the treadmill at the gym. Two little boys. They’d just moved to Alabama for his new job. The tragedy of it is beyond comprehension for me. Brilliant essayist that she is, Amy has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nAmy Welborn, Gratitude & Fearlessness Amidst Unspeakable Grief - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/amy-welborn-allowing-gratitude.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Amy Welborn, Gratitude & Fearlessness Amidst Unspeakable Grief - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Amy Welborn, one of the most gifted religion bloggers on the internet, lost her husband, Michael Dubruiel last week. He died on the treadmill at the gym. Two little boys. They’d just moved to Alabama for his new job. The tragedy of it is beyond comprehension for me. Brilliant essayist that she is, Amy has…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/amy-welborn-allowing-gratitude.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-11T17:17:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Amy Welborn, Gratitude & Fearlessness Amidst Unspeakable Grief - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/amy-welborn-allowing-gratitude.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Amy Welborn, Gratitude & Fearlessness Amidst Unspeakable Grief - Steven Waldman","og_description":"Amy Welborn, one of the most gifted religion bloggers on the internet, lost her husband, Michael Dubruiel last week. He died on the treadmill at the gym. Two little boys. They’d just moved to Alabama for his new job. The tragedy of it is beyond comprehension for me. Brilliant essayist that she is, Amy has…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/amy-welborn-allowing-gratitude.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2009-02-11T17:17:33+00:00","author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/amy-welborn-allowing-gratitude.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/amy-welborn-allowing-gratitude.html","name":"Amy Welborn, Gratitude & Fearlessness Amidst Unspeakable Grief - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-11T17:17:33+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-11T17:17:33+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/amy-welborn-allowing-gratitude.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/amy-welborn-allowing-gratitude.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/amy-welborn-allowing-gratitude.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Amy Welborn, Gratitude & Fearlessness Amidst Unspeakable Grief"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Atlantic, Slate, and many others.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/author\/swaldman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}