This week has been difficult. I have missed my dad so desperately the past few days, it’s been hard to concentrate. The ICU doctor who had treated him warned us that about 3 months after his passing, we would experience a relapse of emotions. I’m really glad she warned us because, man, she was right.
I was reminded today of something I had heard on the radio a few days after my dad died. I don’t recall the entire situation, but someone had called in to KLOVE and was talking about how their loved one had recently passed. The radio announcer responded,
“… we must remember that this is not how we were created. God did not create man to suffer or to experience death. God created Adam and Eve in a perfect world. Mankind chose sin. Adam chose to allow sin to enter the world, and with sin, death. [Romans 6:23] God created this world to be pain-free. Mankind chose suffering.”
As many times I have sat and thought, Why does anyone have to suffer? Why can’t God just take all of the pain away?, it is a humbling and encouraging thought to realize He did not mean for us to live this way. This world was created infertility-free, death-free, school-shooting-free, pain-free, tear-free, abuse-free, foreclosure-free, hurricane-free, theft-free, and orphan-free.
I read an excellent quote from Joni Eareckson Tada in World Publications on January 26th. (For all you kids out there, if you don’ t know who Joni Eareckson Tada is, please Google her). She wrote,
“Why doesn’t God just eradicate suffering all together? If He were to eradicate suffering, He’d have to eradicate sin in which suffering has its roots. And if He were to eradicate sin, He’d have to eradicate sinners. “
These truths, truths that God is a loving God and is completely Sovereign, are what have gotten me out of bed so far this week. I know there must be others that struggle with understanding why. I have more to share later on combating doubt, but that’s for another night.
LackOfNothing 