Do you ever ask why? Why did someone get cancer or a loved one die so young? Why do children suffer when it is not their fault?
In our modern age of technology and medical science, I think everything should have an answer or be fixable. I am at a loss for answers. The question, “Why is life so unfair?” when I have lost dreams and hopes.
Why is life unfair?
The “why” question explodes in my mind and I act like a toddler who tantrums. I yell, cry, complain and experience anger at God, at circumstances, at others, and even at myself. I question God and my worth, wondering if I am good enough. If you are like me, you are not alone.
Questions explode
Questioning when bad things happen is normal. The question comes up, “Why, God?”
In the book, When Bad things Happen to Good People, by Rabbi Kushner wrestles, trying to understanding undeserved tragedies and where is God when suffering happens. Is God not in control of events here on earth or is God not loving? He turns the reader’s focus on how to respond to suffering.
“Why” is both an existential and a theological.
We have permission to ask God the hard questions.
When the ancient character, Job, lost his children and livestock, his well-meaning friends try to find answers to Job’s suffering. In the end, no answer came. The entire book of Habakkuk deals with the “why” question. Even Jesus expressed abandonment and asked “Why” when he cried out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mt 27:46.
We are in good company when we ask, “Why?”
Job
Job’s friends
Habakkuk
Jesus
I realize that distress, suffering, and adversity are part of this life. We live in a broken and flawed world with physical bodies susceptible to illness. We try to make meaning of the pain but come up with many unanswered questions. At the writing of this article, my son is facing the need for a transplant. Fear fills my family’s hearts and “what ifs” questions fill our minds. We have “why” questions. I have difficult faith questions in this unwanted detour.
Unwanted detours
I finished reading, Divine Disruption: Holding on to Faith When Life Breaks Your Heart, by Dr. Tony Evans, Chrystal Evans Hurst, Priscilla Shirer, Anthony Evans and Jonathan Evans. Much of the book centers on their reflections of Tony’s wife, Lois, dying. Dr. Evans and each of the four children grapple with what happened when they prayed and prayed for her healing from cancer. In the end, they voiced unanswered questions and how they trust God when they hurt. “Faith is depending on God when you are living in the unknown,” Jonathan Evans.
Faith depending on God in the midst of unknowns
Unknowns are when life is beyond our control or when we do everything that we can, but life does not turn out the way we hoped. We all experience unknowns and in those unknowns we trod through each day with a burdened heart. We grasp any thread of sense we can make out of it.
God does not cause cancer or a rare disease, God does not cause someone to miscarry, and God does not cause unexplained tragedy.
Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely” 1 Corinthians 13:12 NLT
We may not have answers right now. Someday we will.
I have a host of questions about having two sons with a rare disease. I came to realize that I cannot carry all those questions but file all my unanswered “why “questions, a box called my virtual Mystery Box. This virtual Box is filled with question marks. Even though it is full, I stuff more questions in each year. Holding this hefty box is not possible, rather I set the box aside sometimes. At times, I take the box down and open it up. I hold what is in it, cry, get angry, feel distraught, yell and pray. Then, I put all the questions back in the box returning it to the shelf.
Virtual Mystery Box
The questions in my box are in the trust category in my brain. However, I cycle with seasons of questioning and seasons of trusting.
These are things we can do:
- We can pray for God to comfort, strengthen and give grace.
- We can look at Scripture to guide and give peace, especially the book of Psalms.
- We can get wise counsel
- We can be still
- Respond to adversity or lost dreams by turning the question, “What value can come out of this?”
Gradually, a renewed peace may come. We learn to hold both grief and joy at the same time.
What value will come out of this?
“We live in a broken world, but God promise to take hold of our broken heart,” Sarah Philpott
This prayer stands the test of time:
O God and Heavenly Father,
Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr
