The Question of Suffering - Round 1,006

I go through moments in my Christian faith where I believe I am unconditionally loved by an Almighty King. And then there are times I live in fear, believing He’ll take away everything. I’m not certain where my beliefs go wrong exactly or what lies in me that dares question God. I’m not even certain it’s a question as much as I know it’s a doubt. But really, how DOES a good God allow suffering? My mind has gone in circles with this concept since I can remember. I cannot reconcile justice with grace; goodness with bad things happening.

I have a friend who lost her husband less than a year ago. He died at 37 leaving her a widow, a mother of two young children. And I live in total fear the same will happen to me. The lady who sits next to me at work lost two grandchildren, in a fire, not three months ago. I hear reports of miscarriages and births with defected children and stillborn infants almost every month. I work in a large church; people share their pain. The thought that plagues me is, why wouldn’t that happen to me? It could. Some of it, all of it. There’s no quota for pain. It can keep coming or stop; with no notice. The panic of suffering knows no courtesy call.

Oh God, I’m so unprepared for the bad. I’m ill-equipped to praise you in the storms.