I have questions for God. There are some things I don’t
understand and I would like answers. I guess to some that sounds impertinent,
to ask the Creator of all seen and unseen to explain why some things go
terribly wrong and why He lets them happen when it’s within his power to stop
them. Cue the platitudes: “I guess it was His will.” “They are in a better
place.” “God had His reasons.” “God wanted another angel in heaven.”
There are others, but truth be known, when death comes to
the young and those in the prime of life, I am left without a satisfying answer
and I hate handing out platitudes to the grieving. It feels like it invalidates
their pain and offers hollow words that do nothing to truly console those who
may be asking the same questions. “Why God?” “Why did You do this?” “Why didn’t
You heal?” “Why did You let this happen?” Honest, legitimate questions and to
ask them is a natural response to tragedy.
I am steeped in faith in the goodness of God. I don’t
believe He gives people cancer or other deadly diseases. So the question of why
God makes people sick and die doesn’t haunt me. But that faith doesn’t come so
easily to others. And the question of why He allows suffering is one that has
been asked since Cain killed Abel leaving a pair of grieving parents to wrestle
with it. It’s most common to point to the story of Job who lost all his
children, his wealth, and his health and was left in great physical and
emotional pain trying to stay faithful, but eventually began accusing God of
being unjust and uncaring. Even his wife told him to just curse God and die.
Why God allows suffering is a question I wrestle with along
with so many who experience loss in one form or another. It bothers me enough that
I have gotten angry with God. I have suffered some very ugly painful things. It
took nearly thirty years for me to finally share about one incident in a
therapy group. Wherever people gather who have suffering in common, one of two
things can happen. Either people will prod each other’s anger, depression or
hate, or they will find a way to comfort one another. Fortunately, I was in the
latter. I still don’t understand why I could be minding my own business and
become the victim of a violent crime. I believed God would protect me, and it
seemed He didn’t, at least at the time. But as the wisdom that comes from age
has gradually deepened in me, I realize He did protect me from something even
worse.
I just lost a friend and coworker to cancer. It was a fast-moving
aggressive and rare cancer that claimed her life within months. I prayed, I
asked my church to pray. I asked everyone I knew to pray for her, and I have no
doubt her family and church were praying, too. But God didn’t heal her. God didn’t
stop the spread of the disease or ease her suffering. Instead, He let her die. And
it begs the question, “Why God? Why are her children bereft of their mother,
her husband left without his life’s companion? Where were You?” We want an
answer that makes sense. We want to know why the God of love and mercy let this
happen.
Nowhere in the scripture are we promised exemption from
suffering. What sets Christians apart is their worship of the suffering
Messiah. One who came and dwelt among us and experienced all that we do, including
excruciating pain and death. But we worship not just a suffering Messiah, but
One who was raised from the dead and lives and promises the same to us. Some
call it pie in the sky. I call it faith and I can do that because of how He has
touched my life and so utterly changed it from what it had been before I became
a friend of His.
I cannot answer the why of my friend’s death, but I can
believe she now sees the face of God and Jesus who made it possible. And I can
believe that one day I’ll see His face, too, and not only that, but see her,
too, and maybe we’ll laugh about some of the crazy things that happened in the
library. I believe she already knows why her life ended the way it did. The rest
of us will have to wait to know, but God is God and He has the final say over
all His creation, and that’s no platitude.
My church ends each service with the phrase, “God is good
all the time, and all the time God is good.” That is the only thing that keeps
me going when bad things happen. Scripture says all things work together for
good for those who love the Lord. We may wrestle with God for a time, but eventually
our strength fails and then we discover instead of chastening us for the struggle,
he picks us up and holds us, letting His love overwhelm our grief and calm the
emotional storm in our souls. It may not answer, “Why” now, but it will help us
carry on without bitterness, and that will bring the peace and patience to wait
until we finally learn why.
