Sunday, May 5, 2013

The Problem of "Why?"

The question of "Why do bad things happen to good people?"-- is never more problematic than when a child dies. As a mother, I never in a million years figured that I would outlive my children. Heck, long life doesn't even run in my family genetics! When both of my children were killed instantly, that ugly old question kept trying to weasel into --my now shakier-- Faith belief system.

The question that kept surfacing wasn't so much "Why did they have to die" BUT "Why didn't You intervene?" I've always held firmly to the belief that God is completely omnipotent, omniscient--and also that "Nothing is impossible for God"...So why then didn't You intervene? Why the deaths of these most innocent, precious children?

I'm reminded of a saint that once reportedly lamented to God saying: "If this is how you treat your friends...No wonder you have so few of them!" I like her spunk and knowing that God can take our frail mortal jabs without reeling from the impact.

For me, it all came down to- bottom-line- a matter of whether I truly trusted God or not. Whether I truly believed He really is all those things He's said He is, can do and will do on our behalf. It really is a "make it or break it" time when our children die, in regard to our Faith. We soon find out whether we've built our faith foundation on rock or sand. But whichever it is...God can still patch us up where where our weak areas are. He never gives up on us, even if we give up on Him.

 When I'm up against the wall with matters causing unrest in my soul...it's time for me to renew my trust in Him. I find that's easier when I recall how He has overcome obstacles for me in the past...often in the most creative of ways. And completely personalized, too . Who knew there was a non-smoking, rice-cake eating former nurse--widow of an Episcopalian priest- with three sons and no daughter who's personality and mine so meshed she became a treasure to me!  She answered a request from God to visit her son earlier than planned. She was asked by a family friend to visit me because, well, she was "in the area" and this stranger's home (that just happened to have one bedroom currently vacant) became my new home after I left the hospital. She quickly became one of God's greatest blessings to me.  And I became the initiating member of her "surrogate family"-- as she later called us, after I remarried.

I answered the question I pondered over and over, of "Why" and also "Why not Intervene" with the answer of-- "In this life-- I cannot know...but I trust that God had a GOOD reason for allowing the tragedy to unfold." When I return to God, then I will know. (but God does have some 'splainin to do!)  He'll clue me in by enlarging my ability to understand. Like a little child I am now...unable to figure out the complexities of why this shot hurts so much...but trusting in the One Who loves me more than anyone else in the world...One that only has "my best" interest at heart...And in that Love and Trust I take my rest...

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