It hasn’t even been a whole month into 2016 and you’ve been hurt. Within the first two weeks, celebrities and musicians like David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Natalie Cole, and Glenn Frey passed away from cancer. In our own lives, a lot of our friends and family die from diseases, old age, suicide, or murder. So along with that sadness, your parents may have gotten a divorce, your boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with you, you lost your job, you failed an important test, or you’re just struggling in general. Life sucks, right?

I bet you’re mad and filled with a rush of emotions. For someone who is religious or even someone who isn’t, you’re very likely to point the finger at God and be pissed off at Him. God just took away someone you loved or dumped a whole pile of problems right in your face to add to the stress you may already have. You blame Him for your past and how things could have been better. You begin to question, “If God is supposedly all loving and good, why does He let people die? Why did He let me get hurt when He’s supposed to love me to no end?” That question is never an easy one to answer and it’s very complicated to comprehend. No answer is perfect for this question, but maybe this will help give light to why God lets bad things happen in our lives and in the world around us.

Now, as a friendly reminder, this is coming from a Christian, and I apologize in advance if it doesn’t quite help you out or give you the answer you’re looking for. However, I encourage you to be open-minded about the way I answer this. Remember that it’s impossible to understand the way God works, but what we can know is how much we’re loved by Him. So if you get anything out of this, I hope it’s a greater understanding of love and you gain strength the next time you encounter obstacles in your life. Are you ready? Here we go!

When God made everything in the world, it was perfect. The skies, oceans, land, creatures and humans were perfect. He made man perfectly in His image and at that point in time, we were perfect. You know the story. Adam and Eve could confidently walk with God in the Garden of Eden and all was well. There was so such thing as cancer, death, sickness, bad weather, or bad anything! Then a fallen angel who went against God took the form of a serpent and tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God. This fallen angel, Lucifer, but better known as “Satan” or “The Devil” lives to ruin everything God made perfect and he’s still doing those devious deeds today. Adam and Eve were told not to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Out of all the rules you could ever follow, being told not to eat a certain fruit is really easy. I do it all the time because I’m unhealthy and stuffed crust pizza is just delightful. The serpent tempted Adam and Eve by basically saying, “If God really loved you, He would let you eat from this tree.” Sure enough Adam and Eve believed the serpent and ate the fruit. From that moment, everything changed. Man was now imperfect and since God is completely perfect, Adam and Eve could not walk with God anymore. How would you feel? Being kicked out of someone’s presence for something you did feel pretty terrible. However, when this happened, God still told Adam and Eve He loved them and they would come back to God. He also promised to crush the head of the serpent. God had some pretty brutal trash talk back in the day. So take note here folks. Since humans and God were both perfect at the time, we could walk with Him, play football, watch "Friends," and spend time together with God. Unfortunately, humans messed up and since only perfect things can be with God, we had to leave. Through our departure, God told us He still loved us dearly and He would send someone to bring us back one day.

Not too complicated, right? Good. Now you also know when someone says, “I’m only human,” it just means they’re not perfect. So since we are now imperfect, things hurt. We sweat, we bleed, childbirth hurts, and we feel pain emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Along with this imperfection comes death. If we were perfect, then we would live forever. That answers why people die. Even if someone was the kindest, sweetest, happiest, honest person you knew, they weren’t perfect. God knows their whole life and is an honest judge on our lives.

Now, what about bad weather like hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes? Why did God make terrible weather? That answer goes back to sin. When natural disasters happen, it’s because of sin. Think of this world as a human for example. Humans are not perfect. We get sick, hurt, and we constantly change. So does the Earth. Since we are imperfect, the Earth we live on is also imperfect. God has a specific plan for how the Earth functions just like He has a specific plan for how we function. When natural disasters kill large amounts of people, it is really sad and traumatizing.

However, you have to trust the plan God had for those people. His plan for them was from birth to death, like all of us. The inclusion of a natural disaster creates a greater reason to feel emotion for someone’s death. And remember, Satan wants to take us away from God and is constantly whispering in your ear telling you to be upset with God for making people die. As hard as it is, you need to trust God’s plan for how He uses you and the things that happen in the world around us.

For this last point, I’ll do my best to make it as clear as possible. This is from my own experiences. So we know we’re imperfect and undergo stress, anxiety, pain, suffering, and death. So what about you? What is it that caused you pain? Think really hard about it and then think if you blame God or not for it. If you didn’t blame God, good for you! As for me and many others, we blamed God for bad things. When I lost someone I loved, it was really hard for me to say, “God, I still love you and trust you.”

I felt heavily tempted to tell God I hated Him and I wanted to leave Him behind for not giving me the love He promised me. I had hope for things to be good, but they didn’t happen. Through the pain and emotions, I decided this time to hold my integrity as a man of faith and tell God I loved Him and trusted Him. I remember hoping for something good to happen and it didn’t, but there’s a big difference between hoping for something and hoping in something. I remember this quote from an anonymous speaker who states, “Anyone can feel good when they have their health, bills to pay, they have happy relationships. Anybody can be positive then. Anybody can have faith under those circumstances. The real challenge of growth mentally, emotionally, and spiritually comes when you get knocked down.” This statement is true for life as well as faith.

As Christians, or anyone in general, we have to understand the things we can and cannot control. If you have struggles with your health, emotions, and actions, you can most likely control them. If you lose someone you love, you cannot control that. Christian or not, we have to understand there is a greater power that holds an individual plan for each of us. Again, it’s impossible to understand, but possible to believe and hold faith and trust. When bad things happen, show integrity for your faith and fight the temptation being thrown in your ear. God knows your whole life from beginning to end. He knows how you will live each day and how you will live your last. No matter what happens in your life, trust that it is good and God is using it to bring you to the fullest of life.