Growing up I was the happiest child with a contagious smile and big blue eyes that always searched for the good. However as I got older, I helplessly allowed the world to steal my innocent smile and gentle eyes. I allowed the brokenness to soak into my heart, and soon enough, I couldn’t find anything good about life. I struggled to laugh, to be carefree, to be genuinely joyful and soon happiness had become so foreign to my once fun-loving personality. Sometimes living in this damaged world can be so completely overwhelming, and for lack of better words, terrible. My life had become like a window—anyone, even someone that didn’t know me well, could see the brokenness of the world through both my words and actions. That is, until I met Jesus.
That isn’t to say that I wasn’t a Christian before that. I grew up in a church-going, Jesus-loving family, but my first real encounter with Him came after I reached rock bottom. It came when, and only when, I realized I was in need, and in need of only Him.
You ask why God allows tragedy; why He allows things like terrorism and depression. You ask why He sits on the sidelines and watches His people drown in all this mess. Job losses, divorces, car accidents, murders, suicides, addictions…why are these things so apparent in this world, even among Christians, if He supposedly “loves us?”
To answer your question, I don’t know why He allows suffering. The question is so much bigger than you and me, and I’m not sure we should spend our time on earth trying to figure it out. It’s a concept much too large for us to wrap our brain around.
What I do know, is that God is completely in control. There is nothing in all of creation, past or present that He can’t heal or perfect. However, He has given us free will; He has given us the power to choose — and with this freedom, comes consequences for the constant wrong decisions we make as individuals, as families, as nations.
Before we know it, we have generations upon generations of broken people who are filled with overwhelming worry, anxiety, sadness and countless other things that undeniably crush their delicate human spirit. Living, breathing humans (you and I) — believers and nonbelievers alike — often make life altering mistakes, and with that, evil seeps into our hearts, our minds, our habits and our everyday lives as we turn away from the only thing that can truly save us.
God doesn’t cause car accidents, or give people cancer. He doesn’t make bad things happen — we do, and it’s within those terrible situations that He reveals His relentless love and mercy. Maybe that is why He seems to sit on the sidelines and watch while we screw up. He knows that in the end, we’ll run to Him. Something we would be more hesitant to do if life was perfect. We are in need of Him. And sometimes we are only able to realize that when we find ourselves in serious trouble or unending pain. Thankfully, He is always faithfully there to pick us up when we fall down; to provide friends and neighbors to love us when we can’t find a way to love ourselves.
Recently, I began a journey to restore my childlike faith; to catch the light that slowly slipped from my eyes. I am choosing to find good and find God in the worst of situations and love the people that have wronged me. Through Him, I will look forward to the future, in its entirety, knowing that with Him all things are possible. Cancer, a broken heart, job loss, depression, and a million more things that I don’t know about yet. Through my unwavering faith, I will find comfort in knowing He is already there, and has already overcome.
Who are we to question why God does what He does? There is hurt and pain in this world, as there has always been. Be thankful that God chooses to open His arms when you run to Him, as he always has.
