We all need to face it at some time, perhaps even many times. “Why did God let this happen?” Even if we don’t say the words, the question wells up within us.
In the last couple of years there seems an unusually high number of such situations in my corner of the world among those I know and love. Young adults burying a spouse; parents burying their children in the prime of life; little children burying their parents; accidents, wounds, and sicknesses that weaken, maim, and linger; plans for great things patiently and lovingly made then cruelly destroyed; innocence carefully protected then devastatingly undermined; those entrusted with profound obligations failing the people who so needed them. The list goes on, as human life goes on.
I dare not offer some kind of ‘explanation’; I could not do justice and would over simplify that which should not be over simplified. I do but offer one observation.
With my own eyes, in a number of these oh-so-real situations, I have seen something which I do not think I otherwise might ever have seen. It can sound trite, yet the reality is anything but. We can choose to believe, to trust, and to keep on loving; no matter what. That is what I have seen.
To say of those suffering ‘what else were they to do?’ is to miss the truth. Those of whom I speak—and this is certainly not true of all in such situations—made a choice they did not have to make. They chose to open their hands, to open their eyes, and to open their hearts. Even as it seemed a knife was being driven in further. And they said in effect, “This does not change what I’ve always known to be so.” “It is all gift.” “We are so blessed.”
Yet something thereby does change. Now they do not simply know what they’ve always known. They have come to know it better. Now they see, from a vantage they could not have found, but has nonetheless been offered to them.
And offered to all of us looking on. We look in wonder. And we see through their eyes and through their choice. What was given to them is now a gift to us too: an inestimable gift we might never have found on our own. This is ours to receive, and to keep receiving. Together. As human life goes on.
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This is so heartening. Both for an observer, and as one enduring, to recognize the possibility of such witness through persevering fidelity– thank you so much for articulating this.
Thank you, Madeline.
I think I know why God allows things to happen. First Adam and Eve messed up and were both removed from Paradise into a sin full world taking mankind with them. And I think for man to experience, understand and reject sin is to understand Adam and Eve didn’t seem to understand the situation they were in. Their own son Cain later murdered their other son Abel and Cain began understanding after being cast out of God’s protection (LOVE) into the world to fetch for himself. So too of us, when we experience terrible self sin we are rejecting God’s love and it hurts until we come back. Pray for America each evening at 8:00 EST and ask God for help.
Thank you, Raymond. The reality and effects of our parents original sin–and God’s great mercy in offering us remedies, even in and through punishment–is very much part of the mystery here.
I understand that Adam and Eve wanted to know good and evil. God asked that they wait until they could better understand this knowledge later. They did not, and like a child told not to touch a hot stove they got burned. We now have to trust in God the “hard” way!!! Some of us forget that our Father still loves us.
Thank you, Peter, for making explicit the wonderful aspect of our Father always loving us.
I find at least some degree of acceptance, if not comfort, in the thought that God, in choosing to create something other than Himself, had by definition to create Not-God. If you flip all the divine attributes, you have a pretty good description of the world we live in.
He did indeed have to make something that is Not-God. Yet it is stunning how wonderful we Not-Gods can be if we follow his plan.
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Beautiful meditation. We are truly blessed to be able to offer our suffering in union with His salvific suffering.
Amen.
Please pray for those who die in a state of rejecting God’s love for them, and pray for their family members who similarly do not know God’s love, yet will grieve the loss of their loved one!
Amen.
Dear Dr. Cuddeback,
Thank you so much for this post. First, I am sorry to hear of the many situations in your corner of the world and struck that I am only now learning what you have recognized.
The truth is, I have been lost for some time now. In some ways here, you capture the very issue at the heart of it. I intellectually understand the logic related to the problem of pain. Turning the heart and soul is another matter entirely. I finally heard the words I needed to hear that helped me understand where I had been stuck and have no doubt as to the Spirit in them. To those like me who have struggled to trust, to truly have faith that our God has our best soul as his aim, it can be hard to reconcile when losses stack and our lives which once felt like flourishing now feel severely diminished. When we live in a present so different, and somehow feeling less, than the future we had envisioned. Life and death are realities, when departures feel premature, the challenge can be to reconcile such things with a plan that is somehow about the overall well-being of our soul. Surely the soul had more breath with such love in our lives.
It is good that you have seen others who have embraced the very fact of being yet still alive and turned toward love. My friend pointed out to me that I was lost in a timeline I anticipated rather than embracing what yet is and trusting. In fact, it can feel like moving an aircraft carrier to truly internalize this thought.
He noted that there are times in life when we are “standing in high cotton” and times when we are “in low cotton” and that his belief is that whichever field you find yourself in, there is nourishment for the soul. And that both are necessary for the soul to glow. He spoke of the inspiration we take from the lives of those now gone to another land and the importance of embracing it all. He noted that he is so very thankful for pain and sweat down his back from the manual labor he does in the land, because it reminds him he is alive. And, as you note, what a gift that is. It reminded me I am not called to live a diminished life. I am called to live.
Malia. Amen, amen. You are, it seems to me, living life right where it most happens. God be with you, and may you continue to come more fully alive. One day at a time.