When bad things happen to good people

Our Sunday School class reads a variety of books for our class discussions. We just finished reading When Bad Things Happen To Good People by Harold S. Kushner. While we do not agree with everything any author says, there were many interesting foods for thought in this book.

He suggests "in the final anaysis, the question of why bad things happen to good people translates itself into some very different questions, no longer asking WHY something happened, but asking HOW we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened.

I think we have all asked it before, Why, Why, and Why. This book challenged me for the future to ask," now that this has happened to me, WHAT am I going to do about it." Kushner writes " I can accept that the facts of life are neutral. We, by our responses, give suffering either a positive or a negative meaning."

I sat there thinking about all my grandchildren and the world they are living in. How can I help them to embrace life, trust God, and respond to life's unfairness and give positive meaning to their personal journeys?
Right now, they are being handed most everything they want and need, just as I was as a child. I did not suffer in any big way as a child. It pains me just to imagine any kind of suffering in their innocent lives.

My real shock and participant in suffering came at age 26. I was not prepared in anyway to accept a divorce and give it a positive meaning in my life. But I made some choices and found a Loving God to help me raise my children during 14 of those very hard single again years and I walked on through life. There is still suffering as a result of that divorce but there is also healing and multitudes of love displayed in my life and my children's as we have entered new chapters of all our lives. God has been gracious to us and good!

So today, I press on in a world of suffering. People around me are facing brutal things: cancer, lack of finances, crippling diseases, emotional disorders, broken relationships, family members at war, and hardships of all sorts. I want to help, be an encourager, and a support. Mostly, all I can really do is pray. I am positive prayer is the only way I made it through my suffering. God will give to them that suffer today, Himself, I pray, and He will provide who and what they need to survive their sufferings.

These are thoughts I will ponder and continually ask God for direction.
Some serious thoughts on a Monday from a usually silly, sappy Lolli.