Yeah, Though I Walk - Questions

These first four deaths (My Uncle, My Pastor's Son, My Missionary Cousin, and My Little Cousin) occurred before I was 20 years old and impacted my life profoundly. They taught me lessons about the shortness of life, the suddenness of death, and about keeping short accounts and telling people I love and value them.

These first four deaths also raised questions about the character of God. I have consistently had a firm belief in the existence of God. I see too much evidence in the natural world around me, in the intricacy of the human body and the laws of nature to doubt that He exists. I have, however, had many questions about the character of God.

My Uncle was a youth group leader and driving students to a youth group event when he sustained the injuries that would lead to his death. My Pastor’s Son was a good boy and his father was a Pastor – a man of God. My Missionary Cousin was going to tell people in Peru about how Jesus died to save them, but he was never able to go. My Little Cousin was the daughter and granddaughter of people who loved God and served Him faithfully. It seemed so unfair to me that God would allow these people to die. After all they were serving Him, didn’t that mean they should experience blessing and long life? It seemed so very unfair to me. I asked why. No, at times my heart screamed why.

Although I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to admit it to many or even to myself, I spent many years doubting that God was good. I questioned what kind of God would do this, what kind of God would kill people who were serving Him. What kind of God would allow people to suffer so?

I didn’t know that I was asking the age old question “Why do bad things happen to good people?” But, I was. And it was 16 years before I would find peace with this question. 

What insights into the question 

"Why do bad things happen to good people?" 

have you gleaned on your journey?

Yeah, Though I Walk: Why? (My Missionary Cousin)

I stood in a room filled with books at the Seminario Teologico Bautista in Lima, Peru. The building was simple and dedicated to training young men for the ministry. Before me was a memorial plaque dedicating a section of the books to My Missionary Cousin.  A few days earlier I had listened to a group of missionaries telling their stories and several of them mentioned My Missionary Cousin. They had known him and had planned to minister shoulder to shoulder with him and his family.

In 1977, ten years before I stood in that small library and sat in that living room in Lima listening to missionary stories, My Missionary Cousin and his family left for language school in Mexico. They were to learn Spanish to prepare to serve in Peru. They had only been there a short time before it became apparent that something was wrong. He was diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Over the course of the next 5 years his condition deteriorated and he passed away in May of 1982 during my senior year of high school.

As I listened to the missionaries’ stories, I thought about My Missionary Cousin. He loved God. He loved Peru, the Peruvians, but he never made it back. He loved his wife and 3 young sons. But he had to leave all of that behind in a long torturous death. The tears rolled down my cheeks and I could not hold them back. He was part of the inspiration that led me to Peru as a Summer Missionary Apprentice that year. I was there, but he was not.

After his death I began to ask “Why?” When My Uncle died, I was too young to ask.  Perhaps I was still too young to ask at 12 when My Pastor’s Son died. However, at this point in my life I was beginning to question not only My Missionary Cousin’s death, but also why My Uncle and My Pastor’s Son had to die. All of them loved God, were serving Him, and yet they died. Their loved ones experienced this horrible loss and grief. It seemed so very unfair. I wondered why and somewhere deep in my heart began a stirring doubt about what kind of God would do this.

"Why" is a normal question when facing grief. 

How are you or how have you worked through that question?

Day 5: Why? An Answer

Yesterday, I shared a brief history of what led me ask the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" I have read and heard many answers to this question, some helpful, some . . . not so much.

What I am going to share is AN answer to this question. Although it is an answer that has given me peace through many losses, I also want to say that I know this is not THE ultimate answer, there are pieces missing still. I'm okay with that for now because I am still on the journey. What I have to offer is what I have learned in the face of my own loss and heartache.

The other thing I hope is that my conclusion does not seem overly simplistic, because I don't believe there IS a simple answer. I recognize that this question is usually asked with great anguish and turmoil and that finding peace and resolution is a hard fought journey that takes time.

The foundation of my answer came in the realization that God is good. G.O.O.D. Often we think of good as well-behaved, pleasant, nice, beautiful or high quality. However, God is so much more than that. With God, good refers to his moral character. He is holy and righteous, absolutely without evil. There is no evil in Him and He has not been tainted by evil in any way. He is good and all He does is good.


How did evil enter this world? God created a perfect heaven and a perfect earth. He created angelic beings to serve Him and human beings to enjoy the Earth and to experience intimate relationship with Him. One angel led a rebellion and declared himself equal to God. This angel was cast out of heaven with one third of the angels. He is the being known today as the devil. This same angelic-being-gone-bad influenced the first man and woman to disobey God. With that choice to disobey, evil, death, and destruction entered the human experience. The world and all that is in it was contaminated by sin. God has been at work ever since to redeem what is and to restore what was lost.

The second key factor is that God gave human beings the gift of choice. God did not create evil, nor does He cause evil or sin. Sin entered the world when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God. Because sin entered the world, so did disease and death and many other horrible things.

The one question I want to ask God when I reach heaven is, "Why was it so important for us to be able to choose? You knew all that would happen, all the pain and destruction, yet it was so very important to You that we be able to choose. Why?" I have heard answers. The most compelling to me is that God didn't want robots or puppets, but creatures like Himself who could choose - choose to love, choose right, choose good. Still, I long to hear from God Himself the answer to this question.

Human beings and all that dwell on planet Earth ARE bent and broken, tainted by sin. Our noblest motives, our most altruistic actions, our best relationships are all tainted by the evil that entered this world so many centuries ago. (C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy helped me to understand this in a vivid way. Great reading by the way!)

Sometimes bad things happen as a result of human choice. A person chooses to drive while "under the influence" or while texting and a tragic accident happens. People engage in dangerous activities and a rope breaks, a tree gets in the way, a tire blows and life is irrevocably altered. Government officials make poor political choices and an entire country suffers because of it. 

Sometimes bad things happen as a result of disease that entered the world as a consequence of sin. People battle illness and sometimes the battle is won and sometimes it is lost, each the result of a myriad of interwoven factors such as physical condition, treatment options available, the patient's will to fight, the severity of the disease, and the skill of the doctors.

Sometimes bad things happen because all of creation is under the curse of sin. A tsunami or earthquake destroys property and claims lives, a drought causes crops to fail leading to hunger and malnutrition. Even these "acts of nature" are not what God created the world to be, but what it has become because of the damage of sin.

Bad things happening is the expected outcome of living in a world bent and broken by sin.

Our HOPE is that God will make good out of the bad. He is good. He can only produce good. Bad things will happen in life because of sin. But God promises to work those bad things into something good for those who love Him.

One of my favorite authors, George MacDonald (contemporary of Charles Dickens and admired by C.S. Lewis), has a theme flowing through his writings - that God wants to make us good. I think that perhaps too often we look outside ourselves for the good that we would like God to bring about, when He desires to bring about good IN us, to make us good. 

One of the good things God brings about is building our character as we learn to respond to bad things in ways that reflect Christ. Another good God produces is to strengthen our faith and to help us come to know Him better. God may also work good by helping people to know Christ, by bringing truth to light so that health can be found, by giving a deeper appreciation for life and loved ones, by teaching lessons that change the course of life in a positive direction. The possibilities are endless for what God can do to bring good out of the bad things that happen.

Our other hope is heaven, that one day we will live in a place where mourning and tears are wiped away, where bad things no longer happen. We have the hope that we will forever dwell with God in a perfect place and in unity with God and mankind. In heaven we will see the final redemption of what has been lost and restoration to what was intended to be.

May you find hope and peace on your journey and may you have vision to see the good that God is bringing about.

What are your thoughts about all this?

What good things have you seen come out of bad situations?

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?