SQJ Taipei

The “Problem of Suffering” is an old one… and IMO it will never be truly solved - truly figured out - truly understood - truly reasonable…

I’ve linked to Real Live Preacher before and he often shows up in my shared items in the sidebar.

But this needs more than just a link in the sidebar…

RLP invited Sarah Bickle to guest post. Here is RLP’s post introducing Sarah.

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His name is Thomas, and he is the first-born child of Sarah and Scott. It looked like things were working out just as I hoped they would. Sarah and Scott were young and happy. They were throwing themselves into life and parenting.

And then came the news that Thomas had a brain tumor. The news was a terrible shock to all of us that know and love Sarah and Scott and Thomas. What followed was two years of treatment and hopes and disappointments and financial struggle and pain. They take turns. One works and the other stays home with Thomas. They have lived on prayers and desperation and the unexplainable energy that mothers and fathers have when their child is sick. Nothing matters but doing everything for Thomas that can be done. All else has been put on hold.

They have tried everything, but in the end it appears that cancer will end Thomas’ life just as it was getting started. They have stopped treating his illness and are seeking to give Thomas the best life possible while there is time.

Life knows nothing of fairness. I don’t mean that life understands fairness and rejects it. I mean that fairness has no part in life unless you or I are imposing it. Humans want fairness and sometimes work for it, but it is no part of the natural order. That’s one of the reasons why believing in a just and loving God is so hard for many of us.

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Sarah’s post is here.

During Thomas’s illness, we have been cared for by a lot of people of faith. Of course they are burdened with sadness for us and for Thomas. There is a secondary grief, however, that seems to flicker behind our saddest conversations. Questions like, “Why weren’t our prayers answered?” or “Why won’t God make Thomas better?” are unsaid but present.

Those are good questions, ones that theologians have been arguing over for hundreds of years. I don’t have any good answers, but I’ve had a lot of bad ones suggested to me since Thomas became ill.

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So this is my theory: Death is a mystery. Even for those who believe we’ll meet again in the sky, suffering and death are scary and sad. A thousand years may be a day for God; but for you and me, the space between the difficult now and the glorious hereafter is an awfully long time.

Interestingly, my bravest friends, be they Christian pastors or confirmed heathens, have tended to explain the least. Instead, they have quietly anointed us with their kindnesses. They have prepared meals for us in the presence of our bitter enemy. They are holding our hands as we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

They have been, I mean, like Christ. We’re all scared as hell, but I think this is the best we can do.

I can’t imagine the pain…

In trying to understand suffering, I recommend some solitude… the last 5 chapters of Job… Michael Card’s The Way of Wisdom… CS Lewis (The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed)… Rich Mullins’ Hard to Get and Hold Me Jesus…

As Sarah said… “Death is a mystery”.