Day 4: Why? The Question

Throughout my life I have repeatedly been asked, "Why? Why did this happen? Why did God allow this to happen?"

Four specific untimely deaths led me to ask these questions myself as a young adult.

When I was eight my uncle was killed in a tragic car accident. He and a teenage passenger were killed while he was driving a vehicle full of young people to an amusement park for a church youth group trip. He was serving God. Why did God let him die?

When I was 12 nearly 13 our Pastor's son (just six months older than I) lost his battle with leukemia. His father was a faithful, godly man. The boy was a good boy. Why did God let him die?

While my cousin and his wife were in language school preparing to be missionaries, he was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). The disease ravaged his body and slowly incapacitated him and then his wife was a widow and his young sons were fatherless. WHY did God let him die?

The year I was a freshman in college another cousin's very young daughter lost her battle with leukemia. Chemotherapy, bone marrow transplant, every effort had been made to save her precious life, but in the end nothing could be done. WHY, oh why, did God let this little child die?

Why? Why did God take those who were serving Him? Why did tragedy, trauma, and such profound grief fall on those who were following His call, serving Him with their lives? It seemed so unfair, so upside down for a just and loving God. These questions along with feelings of disappointment (God hadn't protected His own children), sadness as I saw others in such deep pain of loss, and at times anger (How could God allow this?!) swirled around in my head and heart for nearly a decade and a half. At first the thoughts and questions were often in my mind. As time passed, they receded and I came to something of a fatalistic acceptance, but no true resolution.

Then I was faced with a loss of my own and all these questions bubbled to the surface neatly summed up by Rabbi Kushner in the title of his book, Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? For several months after my loss I wrestled with this question and slowly I found an answer that made sense to me.

Tune in tomorrow for the answer that made sense to me.

At some point in life, most of us ponder this question, "Why Do Bad Things Happen?" 

What answers have you found to this question?