Sadly, often times those who fling these questions out there aren't really looking for answers, they are looking to be angry. I do want to say that it is okay to be angry. Anger is a natural human response to all sorts of events in life. Pain, loss, injustice, fear.
Let me say this: Being honest, most of all with yourself, is the biggest thing. Its like two drivers in a race, and they are neck in neck. One driver is happy to let the outcome be an honest one, they are satisfied with the truth. Driver one is okay with loosing, with wining, or with it being a tie, because they are interested in an honest result and if they are worse than driver number two, they would rather know that honestly. However, driver number two feels differently on the topic. Driver two is willing to swerve to make driver one flinch if it means they might take the lead. Driver one wants to win, true enough, but again, honestly, and doesn't feel its worth loosing his life or taking serious career ending damage to do so, and thus does driver two win by cheating.
The joke is on drive two, however. Willing to cheat their way to the winner's circle, driver knows that they will never really know what the outcome of that race might have been had they simply been genuine, followed the race through, and faced the outcome knowing that if nothing else they were real.
This is often us. The two sides to our own selves, the part of us willing to let life be honest and honestly lived, and the part of us that wishes to "cheat", if you will. Pretending something doesn't bother us when it does, making excuses for our responses, blaming others for things that are either our own fault or are simply the way the cards fell by chance.
So I would like to address this today. At least, to some degree.
"Where was God when X got sick?"
Often this is the re-curser to a further question about why that person died or was allowed to die, as it seems less likely to be in spiritual or emotional crisis if the person or their loved one took ill and survived.
Still, perhaps someone took ill and either the effected person or someone who cared for them took it as some sign that either there is no God, or God is some sort of horrible being willing to allow us to suffer.
When those we love get ill, whether its the common cold, or cancer, or other illnesses that leave their victims void of life in some way or literally, take away their mind, or their body in whole or part, God is with us. We may wish to be angry and reject Him over it, but that, truth be told, is our choice. We decide to let these things be barriers to clear thinking or be doors to deeper roots. (Please forgive my mixing of metaphors.)
My thoughts and opinions are that some times its not about us, its about them, the ill person, and what they need. A sports star loosing the use of an arm or their legs now has no fame or fortune to them and it is a tempering in fire in many ways. The years best singer looses their voice a year after an award was won, and now they have no talent to bring them to stage unless they wish to pursue an instrument. Perhaps they use their talents behind the scenes, perhaps this is enough, or perhaps they feel as though they are forever robbed.
Another thought is that the person may very well give all the glory to God in public, but when it is taken, they change their tune. Maybe they needed to make wiser choices.
In short, life, all of life, illness included, is a tempering, a lesson, then another lesson. I think it is meant to build our character. Or show our colors.
For the record, this is not coming from some privileged girl who has never known loss. Indeed I have known more loss, much different loss, than many. Loss of freedom, loss of a child, even if it wasn't to death, it was as good as for me in many ways, worse in some, too. I've known what it is to be hurt, abused, violated, damaged at the hands of those who said they loved me. There have been times when I have experienced what felt very much like betrayal. Sorrow is an old friend, and I do not say these things lightly, as platitudes from some well-meaning and inexperienced hack. I say this knowing what it is to be tempered. I know what it is to loose and to understand it was one part just chance, and it was one part me not learning the lesson the first time it was put to me.
"Where was God when X died?"We do not exist in this life, in this world, so that it can go on forever. This place is temporary for us. All the things we experience here, not to sound like a broken record, but I truly believe they are lessons. It prepares us for whatever is next. Truthfully we only have a hint of what that truly is. I think it must be very big, and rather important, for what some of us go through in this life.
When someone dies, if we are to be believers, we need to understand that God knows what He is doing, and we really do need to lean on the parts of the bible that describe Heaven. It is important, so important, to remember that whether the person dying is an infant, some great person on the brink of something great and world changing, someone who maybe wasn't important to many people, but they were never the less loved by us, or someone very old, that they go on to a better place. This does not mean that this life is unimportant all together, or that we should treat this life with a cavalier attitude because it is less than the next place. Do not misunderstand me, I want no cult behavior to stem from these words, this life is precious and important because this is the first place we are given life.
The good sometimes do die young, and the wicked live on, and perhaps it is because the good person is truly ready for what is next, while the wicked person needs time. Is it really so unjust for a good person to go on to Heaven and for a wicked person to have another chance to live a better life? If we are inclined to say that it is unjust, understand that this life is not the piece of cake that Heaven is, and that person who did wrong may yet turn it around and save many hundreds more for good things, while the good person was good, but was ready for the next step.
Understand that it is not only the righteous who are called, and who reach their hand out. There is a sense of guilt in all of us, and that drives us in strange ways sometimes. Me being as sullied and un-pristine as I am, another person may well look at what my life has been and say to themselves "Woah, she's been foolish and not always as good as she seems. If she can figure it out, why can't I?"
The good and the called are not always the same. And the good will have their own rewards. While those of us who toil will find our ways, whatever we choose for that way to be.
"Where was God when tragedy hit me/my family/my loved one?"
Again, the infuriatingly simple answer is that He is right there with you. Waiting as ever for you to turn to Him, to cast your burdens on Him. Offer up your plea, emotion, bargain, whatever it is. He sits with us in those dark places, all too familiar with what and how they are. What we do with those times is the choice we get to make for ourselves. The thoughts we give way to, or the actions we commit ourselves to. He walks through it with us, waits, sits with us.
The sad truth is that free will is only real if we are all allowed the full breadth of action. The unimaginably kind, and the unspeakably evil.
As anger is a natural human emotion, it is healthy and normal, it is also ours to control, not to let reign. Emotions, as anything else, are indicators, and we loose when we let them ride run over us. The only one who gets the bad end of things is the one who is not honest.
So, too, is it us who loose when we point the finger at God and cast blame, or try to say we are abandoned when we are in pain or afraid or in danger. We do those we love no good by our unpleasant attitudes.
Sickness happens. People make bad choices every day, and every day some of those bad choices result in loss for someone who doesn't deserve to loose. No one will ever say life is or should be fair, but death is fair, and what comes after it. To blame God for giving you the freedom to love the color of your choosing, to decide for yourself what your favorite food will be, to pick the shirt you put on your back today is the same as blaming him for someone making the choice to drink and drive, or to out right murder someone intentionally. It is allowed but it does not mean it is approved of, any more than it is approved of when someone loves and often wears a color that they may look awful in. It is not approved of when someone slowly waists the life they have been given in front of the television any more than it would be if someone spends their whole life seeking thrills or all sorts. It may well be approved of for someone to give and give and work hard for others and charitable causes, yet the motivation is what God looks as, and that is not to say that the person being given to is not being enabled. Like wise is it better or worse that a good person be taken to a perfect place or endless joy, a place where they know they will only wait a short time to them and then they will be joined by their loved ones? Yet those loved ones have a choice, as well. Those I know to have been wonderful people and that I will look forward to seeing again are not lost to me forever. It is only "see you later".
This entire world is fleeting. Fashion changes by season these days, and selfies are posted sometimes by the minute. Do we really think its that worth while to force someone to be forever stuck here? I'm not so sure...
