Suffering

My grandmother's two best friends died in the last 8 days. She is 78 years old and her friends were both in their 70's. They lived long lives, and the one even died in her sleep. However, as I have walked with my grandmother through this process of grief, she has asked me many questions such as: Why do people have to suffer? Can't God stop suffering? This had me do a lot of thinking.

One thing I always find interesting about suffering is how people immediately equate suffering to God's doing, when nothing else in life is God's doing. I have seen many atheists and agnostics never acknowledge or question God's existance except when there is devastation. You hear people say, "Why did not God do anything on September 11th?" which is insinuating that there is: a) a God and b) That He is the cause of suffering. Yet, why is He never cause the good of things? Why is He not the cause of found children who are kid napped? Or people who survive cancer? Why is God's existance only validated when we need to blame Him for something?

Perhaps it is because it rids us responsibility. If God is only capable of doing bad things (and preventing bad things) then we can either hate Him or ignore Him. To acknowledge that He lives all the time and is active in every part of lives puts us in a position of obedience and surrender. It is much easier to have someone to blame when something goes wrong then it is to live a dedicated life of service.

C.S. Lewis once said, "But what about free will? Such a easy thing to forget." It is fascinating to me that as human beings, we want free will and the opportunity to make choices, but yet we say that at certain points God is supposed to interrupt and disturb that free will. Such as, it is alright to have free will so we can choose our job, have a medical procedure, decide what we want to eat or move some where. But it's not ok to have free will when it comes to going out and murdering someone. We forget that free will is not a "salad bad" concept-you cannot have it both ways. Either we, as human beings, are completely able and free to do as we please, or we are not. It is obvious, we are free to do as we please. God cares about what we do, but He cannot control what we do. Even if it's something awful.

And that assumption we always make.. It looks something like this: "Because I suffer, God is not good." Which is very fascinating if you even think of athiests saying this, because even in their unbelief they are acknowledging a Higher Power that might rule over our earthly sufferings. I am not sure why as human beings we immediately equate suffering with a lack of God's goodness. Who came up with this idea and why is it something that cradles our anger and bitterness? It seems to me that if we believe in God, we have no other option but to believe He is Soverign and Good and Holy. Because if He isn't, is He really a God worth serving and knowing? God's goodness is not dependent on my life. I would even be as bold to say that God's goodness is not dependent on millions of Jews that were persecuted, or the millions of children that die every year from a illness. God's goodness is seperate from His creation, just as our human hearts and souls are seperate from our bodies.

Lastly, I am convinced that God is most present in times of suffering, we just don't always recognize it. C.S. Lewis said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscious, but shouts to us in our pain." When do most people recognize a Higher Power (whether in a good way or bad?) Very often, it is in times of suffering. We are so exhausted from our carnal bodies and feelings that we immediately look for something more. Crystal Richardson once said, "When you have cried every kind of tear.. it is then, that you have lived." Perhaps in the spiritual realm, the true purpose of suffering is not to tear us away from our God, but to bring us closer to Him.

If hope is born of suffering,
If this is only the beginning,
Can we not wait one more hour watching for our Savior?
(Nichole Noredman)