Can you imagine loosing the most important person in your life and not being able to say goodbye? Then that person coming back and you miss it? How much guilt and shame, doubt and confusion would their be? A lot.
Thomas is one of the guys who we blame for having little faith and believing as the others who actually saw Jesus did but, can we admit that you and I probably would have been in the same boat as "Doubting Thomas". I mean resurrecting was not a common theme and certainly not something you would expect to happen. So don't get all upset with Thomas just because he had a hard time taking their word for it.
Think of the confusion they were all feeling. they followed Jesus and put their lives on line to do so. They left jobs, families, and home towns to be His disciples and then he was gone. Just like that gone. They were probably thinking "it's over, let's just go back home." Many of them did. But to the ones who stuck around they were in for a treat.
Jesus did make good on his promise and show up for them in the midst of doubt and confusion. His resurrection did not require their belief, It was God's plan regardless of that. His resurrection is what gives is hope in the midst of doubt and confusion. Even though we don't understand it and have a hard time believing it, it still happened.
It happened so we could be forgiven. It happened so we could find hope. It happened so we could have life, abundant life!
24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, who was called [e]Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” 26 [f]Eight days later His disciples were again inside, and Thomas was with them. Jesus *came, the doors having been [g]shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be to you.” 27 Then He *said to Thomas, “Place your finger here, and see My hands; and take your hand and put it into My side; and do not continue in disbelief, but be a believer.” 28 Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus *said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you now believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”
John 20:24-29