I got a tough phone call from a friend. She’s going through some hard times. In fact, you could say her life has been a series of hard times. She knows me well enough to ask, “If God is so great, how come He’s never great for me?”
Another friend lost his little girl to cancer; still another lost her job. And in every case the question is the same: “Why did God turn his back on me?”
And here’s the answer: I don’t believe He did and I don’t know.
I don’t know why my father-in-law is turning ninety-three while my friend buries his four year old. I don’t know why a beautiful young mother takes her own life. I don’t know exactly how depression so effectively steals the light and strips the soul. I don’t know why our fragile dreams are so often pushed off the table only to shatter on the tile below.
I don’t know why hope is under continual, unrelenting assault.
I do know this: Faith lives in the I don’t know, and there it grows in strength. I have faith that my friend’s troubled life is preparing her for a greater one. I have faith my friend’s little girl is playing in God’s magnificent playground; that she’s surrounded by colors beyond comprehension and she has no memory of pain and no concept of tears. I have faith that darkness is merely the absence of light and that there’s a Creator who loves us so much He’s just as anxious as we are to bring us home.
Three powerful words: I don’t know.
Maybe if we openly admitted this, more people would feel welcomed in our camp.
