The emotional problem of suffering

The Christian (Calvinist) philosopher and ethicist John Feinberg discusses the emotional problem of suffering. He offers his own experiences with suffering after his wife was diagnosed with Huntington's Disease as well as advice on how to help those suffering. The following excerpt is taken from his book The Many Faces of Evil (revised edition).

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Initial reactions

After the initial diagnosis and later confirmation, I was besieged by a host of emotions. Even to this day, I still wrestle with those feelings. I believe others who experience tragedy undergo similar reactions. If we are to minister to those who are hurting, we must understand how they feel. The predominant reaction I experienced was a feeling of hopelessness and helplessness. There had been problems before, but usually there was some way out. In fact, usually, I could figure out something to do and do it. But not this time. When no one knows the exact cause of the problem, no one can offer a solution.

I felt that the situation was absolutely hopeless. I would have to watch my wife whom I dearly love slowly deteriorate and die. Maybe as the disease progressed, she wouldn't even know me. Or possibly worse, she would know me but would turn against me as she imagined that I had turned against her. After all, my mother-in-law had misjudged my father-in-law's reasons for putting her in a mental institution for the last years of her life. Then, Pat would eventually be gone, and yet it still wouldn't be over. The same thing could happen to each of our children. I remember thinking that this threat of doom would hang over me and my family every day for the rest of our lives. There was no morally acceptable way out. There was only one person who could do anything about this, and it appeared at that time that he wasn't. The situation seemed hopeless. I realized how dismal life can seem when there is no hope.

Beyond the hopelessness, I felt helpless to do anything. I was experiencing physical problems myself that were only exacerbated by the stress from this news. Before long I came to a point where I was barely able to do my work. And I wasn't much help to my family either. I wanted at least to comfort my wife and help her deal with this distressing news. But all along she has handled this situation far better than I. Somehow God gave her strength and victory over the situation, and she didn't seem to need my help. I felt locked out of her life at this most critical time, and I felt as though I could be of little help. Whatever therapeutic value there might be for me in comforting her was lost.

Though your situation is probably different than mine, if you have confronted this sort of affliction, I suspect that you have had similar feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Along with those feelings comes as well the sense of abandonment. At a time like this, one feels as though there is no answer and no one to help. Yes, there are friends and family, but what can they do? They aren't doctors, but even the doctors don't have a cure for this disease, so what could others do? Anyway, they have their own families to care for and their own problems.

Something else heightens the feeling of abandonment. Invariably when news like this comes, people are very concerned, but they tend to stay away. They are afraid they will say the wrong thing at a time like this. Nobody wants to be like Job's comforters who over time became his accusers! Better to stay away than take the chance of sticking one's foot in one's mouth. But staying at a distance only serves to confirm the worst fears of the person suffering. He feels abandoned, and by keeping your distance you communicate that he is. And the problem isn't just that one feels abandoned by friends at this point. The deeper fear and pain is that God is no longer there. It doesn't matter how much you have sensed God's presence in your life before. At a time like this, he seems absent. And when you know that he is the only one who can do anything about your problem, it is especially painful to sense his absence.

It goes without saying as well that these emotions are accompanied by anger. The anger may not be particularly rational, but it is real. I was angry that this was happening to us. I never expected exemption from problems just because I am a Christian, but I never thought something like this would happen. In one fell stroke, we learned that my whole family was under this cloud of doom. That kind of catastrophe wasn't supposed to happen. I was angry. Since I had known before I married that God wanted me in the ministry, and having been raised in the home of a well-known Christian educator and minister, I had a pretty good idea about the nature of the life I would lead. It would require lots of time and effort, but it was what God wanted me to do. Given that mindset, had I known the truth about my wife's family medical history, I wouldn't have married her. Pat has said that had she known, she probably wouldn't have married at all. If we had known, we wouldn't have had children. Nobody wants to put people they most love in this kind of jeopardy! I was angry at family members who knew and didn't tell us. I was angry at the doctors who knew and never explained it to the family. And I was angry at family members who didn't know but could have asked the doctors for an explanation but didn't. If anyone had given us the information before we married, I could have avoided this situation.

Though I didn't want to admit it, I was also angry at God. I knew that was foolish. After all, God hadn't done this. Nor could I think of anything in or out of Scripture that obligates God to keep this from happening. Beyond that, it was foolish to be angry at the one person who could do anything about it. Anyway, who was I, the creature, to contest the creator? As Paul says (Rom. 9:19-21), the creature has no right to haul the creator into the courtroom of human moral judgments and put him on trial as though he has done something wrong. God has total power and authority over me. It was foolish to be angry with one who has such total control over my every move.

Still, it is human nature to be angry and expect something different from God. In my case, it wasn't just that he had allowed this to happen to us. I felt that God had somehow misled me, even tricked me. When Pat and I first met, we were sure there was no way we would marry. I was headed into teaching, and she was headed to the mission field. This could never work out. Our relationship grew, but I feared that we were headed for trouble if we continued, because it seemed God was leading us in different directions. One night I went to break off the relationship, because I was sure God couldn't want us to fight his will to send us in different directions. As Pat and I talked, we began to realize that she had a definite call to full-time ministry, but there was no clear call to missions. We continued to see each other and prayed about this whole thing, telling the Lord to break it off (as painful as that would be) if he didn't want us together. Rather than destroying the relationship, the Lord made it abundantly clear in various ways that he wanted us to marry.

With that background, perhaps you can sense why I felt I had been misled. The Lord knew I was going into a very demanding ministry. He knew that I needed a wife to help me, and he knew that if I was really to give myself to the ministry he was giving me, I would need at least a relatively healthy wife. My mom had suffered with various physical problems, and I had seen the strain that had put on Dad and his ministry. But Mom was never incapacitated so that she couldn't function in the home on a consistent basis. I reasoned that God knew all of that, so he would give me at least a relatively healthy wife. Beyond that, the Lord had so clearly led us to marry, and those who had been asked about whether Pat could have the same problems as her mother had assured us there was nothing to worry about. Now I had learned the horrible truth, and I felt that I had been tricked. I had been led down a path only to learn that I wasn't getting what I thought I was.

I remember thinking at the time that none of this made any sense. God is the supremely rational being, and yet it seemed that he was actualizing a contradiction in my life! The news of my wife's illness seemed to contradict the Lord's leading in my life over the previous fifteen years. I didn't know what to do, and I didn't even know what to think. At one point, I thought about Abraham. God had given him Isaac, the child of promise, only to tell him to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah. That must have made no more sense to Abraham than my situation made to me. And yet Abraham had believed, anyway. He believed that if he sacrificed Isaac, God would resurrect Isaac from the dead (Heb. 11:19).

What incredible faith! I thought. I should be more like Abraham. Surely, his situation should comfort and encourage me. But it didn't. I remembered only too quickly that it was reasonable for Abraham to believe, because God had made very specific promises about this son (Gen. 12:1-3; 15:4-6; 17:15-19). God had made no such promises to me about my wife and children. He had made it clear that Pat and I should marry, and he had seen to it that information that would have kept us from having children was hidden. But he had never promised that there would be no catastrophic illness. There had never been any promises about how long or healthy a life any of us would live. Yes, God could perform a miracle (as Abraham expected in Isaac's case) and heal all of them, but there were no guarantees that he would-no promises that necessitated a miraculous healing. As instructive as the Abraham and Isaac case is, I had no right to take comfort from it.

None of this made sense to me, and I was confused. I was also confused for another reason. I was raised around people who suffered greatly. As I mentioned, my mother had one physical problem after another. I can't remember a time when there wasn't some significant problem. In part, I am sure, because of her experiences, I became interested at an early age in the problem of pain and suffering. As I grew up, I thought about it repeatedly. In seminary, I wrote my Master of Divinity thesis on Job. Later, my Master of Theology thesis was on God's sovereign control of all things and how that relates to human freedom. Then, my doctoral dissertation comprises many of the chapters of this book. If anyone had thought about this problem and was prepared to face real affliction, surely it was I. And yet when the events I have recounted happened, I found little comfort in any of it. I couldn't figure it out. I had all these intellectual answers, but none of them made any difference in how I felt. The emotional and psychological pain were unrelenting, and the physical results from the stress and mental pain were devastating.

Why didn't all the years of study, reflection, and writing on the problem of evil help at this moment of personal crisis? I was experiencing a religious crisis, and none of this information I had stored away seemed to matter. As I reflected on this, I came to what for me was a very significant realization. All my study and all the intellectual answers were of little help because the religious problem of evil isn't primarily an intellectual problem. Instead, it is fundamentally an emotional problem! People wrestling with evil as I was don't need an intellectual discourse on how to justify God's ways to man in light of what's happening. That's what is needed to solve the abstract theological/philosophical problem of evil and the other problems handled earlier in this book. This, on the other hand, is a problem about how someone experiencing affliction can find it in himself to live with this God who doesn't stop it.

This doesn't mean that no spiritual truths or intellectual answers can help the sufferer. It means that many of those answers won't help with this problem and that others that do won't help at all stages in the sufferer's experience. They must be used at times when the emotional pain has healed enough so that the sufferer is in a frame of mind for them to make a difference.

It was at this point that I understood experientially Plantinga's point about the religious problem requiring pastoral care, not philosophical discussion. And I would urge you to take this very seriously, if you want to help those struggling with the religious problem. I can illustrate the point by a simple example. Think of a young child who goes out to play on a playground. Sometime during her play, she falls and skins her knee. She runs to her mother for comfort. Now, her mother can do any number of things. She may tell her daughter that this has happened because she was running too fast and not watching where she was going. She must be more careful the next time. The mother, if she knew them, might even explain to her child the laws of physics and causation that were operating to make her child's scrape just the size and shape it is. The mother might even expound for a few moments on the lessons God is trying to teach her child from this experience.

If she then pauses and asks her daughter, "Do you understand, Sweetheart?" don't be surprised if the little girl replies, "Yes, Mommy, but it still hurts!" All the explanation at that moment doesn't stop her pain. The child doesn't need a discourse; she needs her mother's hugs and kisses. There will be time for the discourse later; now she needs comfort.

The same is true for each of us as we struggle with the religious problem of evil. We don't want or need immediately a lengthy lecture to appeal to our mind, because this isn't primarily an intellectual matter. What we need is something to take away the pain. And a very big part of that pain is not knowing what these events mean about how God feels about us or how we should feel toward him.

Things that don't help

If the religious problem of evil isn't primarily about justifying God's ways to man but about how one can live with this God, how can we help people through this difficult time in their life? I can only answer in terms of things that weren't helpful to me, and things that did make a difference. Hopefully, this will help you whether you are struggling with suffering or only hoping to minister to those who are.

Invariably, people will try to say something they hope will help. Sometimes it does, but often it is extremely insensitive and only drives the sufferer into further despair. Let me mention some things that are inappropriate to say. Someone may say, "There must be some great sin you've committed; otherwise this wouldn't be happening to you." I am very thankful that no one said this to me or my family, though it is a common reaction when others hear of severe affliction. This was the reaction of many of Job's miserable comforters. They didn't really know what was happening, but they were sure it wouldn't look good for God if a righteous man suffered. So they reasoned that God would allow this to happen only to the guilty.

While it is true that God punishes sin, and the wicked will have a day of judgment, Scripture is very clear that sometimes the ungodly prosper (Psalm 73) and the righteous suffer (Job 1:8; 2:3; 1 Pet. 4:12-19). The truth is that in most instances we don't really know whether someone suffers as a righteous person or as a sinner. Outwardly moral people may be great sinners, and even those who seem righteous may be guilty of some hidden sin. The story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16) is a vivid reminder that outward appearances aren't a good basis for judging spirituality. If someone is suffering in punishment for sin, that person will likely know it without our saying a thing. If that person doesn't realize it, it is still probably better to ask him what he thinks God is saying through the affliction, rather than to offer our opinion. And, if someone is suffering for righteousness' sake, as was Job, it won't help if those who aren't suffering assume an attitude of moral superiority and accuse the sufferer of sin.

Another mistake is to focus on the loss of things rather than the loss of people. I don't speak from personal experience, but from that of a relative. Some years ago a relative was on vacation. While on vacation, she learned that her home had burned to the ground, trapping and killing her son who was unable to escape. Her pastor tried to be of help, but made some significant mistakes in handling her situation. For one thing, he made very little attempt to see her and allow her to talk out her feelings. And then, the few times he did say something, he expressed concern over the loss of her house and possessions. You can imagine how hurt she was. The loss of one's home and possessions is not insignificant, but in one way or another, those things can be replaced. The loss of a loved one is the greatest loss. How does one replace a son? That pastor missed the point of her grief. By his insensitivity, he missed the opportunity to minister to her in her time of crisis, and hindered rather than helped the healing process in her life.

Sometimes when we lose a loved one people will try to comfort us by convincing us that what has happened spares us from other problems. Here I relate the experience of one of my students. He and his wife had their first baby, and he was in my class for the term just after the baby's birth. About midway through the term, the baby very suddenly and unexpectedly died. After the funeral and toward the end of the term, he shared with the class some of what he had learned. Part of what he told us focused on things not to say to someone experiencing such grief. He told us how some people had said, "You know, it's probably a good thing that your son died. He probably would have grown up to be a problem. Maybe he'd have been a drug addict or would have refused to follow Christ. God knows these things in advance, and he was probably just saving you from those problems."

I trust that no one thinks this is an appropriate thing to say. It may be true that the child would have been a problem, but it is hard to see how that information is a comfort at the time of loss. Parents and relatives love that child, and they love him regardless of whether or not he is or would be a problem. Their loss is extremely painful, and the pain isn't eased, let alone removed, by insensitive speculations about the future. Moreover, the comment is wrong, because it in effect says that it is good that evil has happened. I don't see how that can ever be an appropriate attitude for a Christian. Yes, James says we are to count it all joy when we fall into various afflictions (James 1:1-2), but we must not misunderstand this. The affliction is not joy; it is evil. The cause for joy is that in spite of the evil, God is with us and can accomplish positive things in our life even in the midst of affliction. But the affliction isn't a good thing. If it were, we might be inclined to seek suffering. Obviously, nothing in Scripture suggests that we should do that. Anyway, we don't have to seek affliction; it has a way of finding us.

There are other comments that don't help either, and here I do speak from personal experience. Not long after we learned the truth about my wife's condition someone said to me, "Well, you know, everyone's going to die from something. You just know in advance what it is in your wife's case."

Even if this were true, in what respect can it be a comfort? Does the thought of your own death bring you comfort? If you knew in advance the cause of your own death, would you be inclined to say, "Ah, well, very good; now I can rest easy knowing what will get me"? No one likes to reflect on their own or a loved one's demise. That it will happen to all of us is no encouragement, nor is knowing the manner of our death. That is true even if ours will be an "easy death," let alone if we face death from a catastrophic disease. At the time of someone's grief, don't think you will help them by reminding them that others will also die someday or that at least they know in advance how they will die.

The other problem with this comment is that it isn't necessarily true. Indeed, the likelihood that my wife will die of Huntington's Disease is great, but it isn't absolutely certain. She could die of a heart attack, in a car accident, or some other way. None of that is cause for rejoicing either, but it does show that the comment in question is neither helpful nor necessarily correct.

Likewise, it doesn't help to remind me or my wife that despite her disease and despite the fact that it takes people when they are relatively young, I might still die before she does. That could be true as well, but I don't find it comforting to think that at a time when she is least able to function and most needs my help, I might not be there. And that is no encouragement for her either.

One of the most typical comments is one I have made myself at times when visiting the sick or the bereaved. As we fumble for something to say that will comfort our friend or loved one, somehow it seems appropriate to say, "I know how you must feel at a time like this." Through my experiences, I have learned how inappropriate and unhelpful this comment can be. The problem is really twofold. On the one hand, the problem is that it isn't true, and the sufferer knows it. Hence, it sounds phony when you say it. Even if you think you know how I feel, and even if the same thing happened to you, you don't and you can't know how I feel. You can't, because you are not me with my particular personality and emotions, with my background and experiences, with my particular family and the relations to one another we share. Nor can I know exactly how you feel when suffering comes your way. Telling me that you know how I feel sounds insincere, a cheap way to try to comfort me, because I know it can't be true.

Now, it may be, especially if something similar has happened to you, that you tell me this, because you think I might be encouraged by seeing that others have suffered greatly and yet have survived it. If that is your point, then why not simply say that, rather than saying you know how I feel? What you say may still not comfort me, because I may be in too much pain at the time to think I'll ever make it through this crisis. You can say this from the vantage point of looking back at the crisis and seeing that you survived. I am still in the midst of the crisis. Your experience is no guarantee that I'll make it.

So your reassurance that others have survived tragedy may not comfort me. But at least that comment, if you make it, is true. You aren't telling me you know how I feel when I know you can't know how I feel. You are simply saying that though these things are hard, others like yourself have experienced tragedy and still survived. Unless I am totally different from everyone else, it is possible for me to make it, too.

The other problem with saying you know how I feel is that it really doesn't matter whether you know how I feel. For one thing, do you think I would rejoice in knowing that you feel as miserable as I do? I wouldn't wish my feelings of grief on my enemies, let alone my friends. To know that you feel as bad as I do would make me feel worse, not better. But beyond that, the fundamental reason it doesn't matter if you know how I feel is that this information alone won't help me. What helps is not knowing you feel like I do, but knowing that you care!

Look at it this way. Suppose some horrible tragedy happened to you, suppose I had experienced the same thing, and suppose I know you. Suppose I tell you, "You know, friend, I know exactly how you feel. I've been there myself. But, you know what? I know how you feel, but I don't really care about what's happening to you." Would that comfort or help you? Of course not! But if I tell you I don't know how you feel, but I do care, and I want to be of help, that will make a difference. Remember, the sufferer feels helpless, hopeless, and abandoned. He doesn't need us to identify with his situation or "feel his pain." He needs us to care and to show that care by helping however we can. He doesn't need us to share his feelings; he needs us to share his burdens!

Here it is very important to recognize the difference between "I know how you feel" and "I really feel for you." The former identifies with the sufferer. The latter shows our concern. It doesn't matter whether you know how I feel. You can't really know, anyway. What does matter is that you care!

Let me mention a final set of comments I found thoroughly unhelpful. As the months wore on after my wife's diagnosis, I longed to have someone to talk to about how I felt. A dear, godly colleague who has been a friend for many years offered to listen. I began to explain how perplexed I was because of how things had happened. It seemed that God had hidden information from us about my wife prior to our marriage and prior to having children. I noted that, on a Calvinistic conception of God that sees God in control of all things, this was especially troublesome. But even if I were more inclined toward an Arminian notion of God, it still seemed God should have intervened in our behalf. After all, hadn't we prayed that God would lead us and keep us from making a wrong decision about whether to marry? My friend replied that I was talking about this concept of God and that model of God. What I really needed to do was stop such talk and recognize that God is bigger than all those conceptions.

There is something right about what my friend said. Surely, we can never hope to understand our majestic and mighty God thoroughly through human thought forms. Yet I found my friend's comments unhelpful. For one thing, he failed to see that his comment about God being bigger than all our conceptions of him is itself another conception of God. But that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was that my friend in essence was saying that things would be better for me if I just changed my notion of God. Now, it is true that a sufferer who is an atheist needs to change her perception of God. A Christian who has little training in theology might also need a better understanding of God. In fact, even a theology professor could hardly be hurt by adjusting his views to a more accurate picture of God.

But there is still a major problem in thinking that this will resolve the religious problem of evil. The problem with telling someone in this situation that all they really need to do is just change their view of God is that the comforter is treating what is fundamentally an emotional problem as if it were an intellectual problem. Please do not misunderstand this. The sufferer may have a wrong notion of God, and at some point in dealing with her, we must help her get a better picture of God. But if the religious problem is, as I suggest, at root an emotional hurt, that must be handled first. And you don't handle that problem by telling someone to adjust her idea of God. You can change your view of God and still find that the pain remains!

There are other forms of this error that are just as common among Christians. One is, "You know, if you were a Calvinist, you'd see that God is in control of all of this, and then you could rest in him." Another is, "If you weren't so Calvinistic, you wouldn't think God has his hand so directly in everything, and then you'd stop blaming him for what's happened to you." Perhaps the most common is, "When things like this happen, aren't you glad you're a Calvinist? Isn't it great to know that God is ultimately in control of it all, and he's already planned the way out of your problem?"

The first two of these comments are really saying that this whole thing will be all right, if you just change your view of God. The third doesn't tell the sufferer to get a new concept of God, but tells him to take comfort in his beliefs about God. But don't assume this will in fact comfort everyone. I am a Calvinist, and I found that comment distressing, not helpful. Because of my belief in God's control of all things and because of what I thought about how it appeared that God had misled me, I took no comfort in the fact that I was a Calvinist. In fact, I remember thinking quite frequently that everything that had happened to me and my family would be easier to take if I were an Arminian. At least then I wouldn't see God so actively and directly in control of what had happened.

What was the problem here? Was it that I really needed to discard my Calvinism as inadequate? Not at all. Had I been an Arminian, what had happened would still hurt terribly. The problem was that others who made the comment, and I as well, thought this deep emotional wound could be salved by simply reflecting on this intellectual concept. Indeed, there is a time for explanation and reflection upon what one knows to be true of God. If one's ideas about God are wrong, there is also a time for changing them. But not when the hurt is so deep and so new! Remember the little girl with the skinned knee. In answer to her mother's explanations she says, "Yes, Mommy, but it still hurts."

Remember as well Plantinga's point. This isn't a problem that requires philosophical (and, I would add, theological) discourse; it requires pastoral care. In any given case, no one can predict how long it will take for the pain to subside to the point where the sufferer is ready to think seriously about concepts of God. But until it does, it won't help the afflicted to tell them to change their view of God or simply meditate on what they believe about him.

There was one other thing I found unhelpful in the midst of this emotional and spiritual turmoil and upheaval. I was concerned about my response to our situation, and I felt guilty that I was not on top of things. After all, Christians are supposed to rejoice in all things and persevere no matter what. Beyond that, as one in a position of Christian leadership, people would be looking all the more closely at me to see how I handled this. Still, I was finding it hard to cope. I preach quite frequently, but for about six months I was physically and emotionally unable to preach. Even more, I felt that anything I would say would be hypocrisy, since I wasn't living whatever I might preach.

All of this was disturbing enough, but my uneasiness increased. One day I was listening to a Christian radio program. A husband and wife who had lost a daughter in her twenties in an automobile accident were giving their testimony. They recounted what had happened to their daughter and how, as a result of these events, various people had come to know the Lord. They concluded that even though the loss of their daughter was hard, it was all for the best. It was good that this had happened. I heard that and I only felt more guilty. It seemed the height of Christian maturity to take life's harshest blows and say that it was good that this had happened. If that was what it meant to be victorious in the midst of affliction, I knew I was far from that. I couldn't rejoice over the evil that had befallen and would befall my family. But I thought I was supposed to, so my sense of inadequacy increased.

When I went to talk with my friend and colleague, as I suggested above, some things he said weren't helpful. But what he said on this matter was most helpful. I told him I knew I was supposed to respond Christianly in this situation. But did that mean I had to like what was happening? Without batting an eyelash he responded, "You do have to learn to live with this, but that doesn't mean you have to like it!"

This may sound like heresy to some. Popular Christian belief reminds us to rejoice in everything and count it all joy when trials come our way. One isn't really "with it" spiritually unless he can say the affliction was a good thing-or so we are told. But I beg to differ. Thinking that way won't help you cope with your grief; it will only add to it as you feel guilty about your inability to do what you think we are called to do.

My friend was right, and I came to see why as I reflected on this over the following weeks and months. Those verses don't say the affliction is good or that it is a cause for rejoicing. They say that we are to rejoice when these things happen, because God is sufficient in the midst of trials. We are to rejoice because we can see what God is accomplishing in spite of the trial. Affliction may prove to be the occasion for God to do good things in our life, but the suffering isn't good. It is still evil.

Because the affliction is evil I am neither required to like it nor should I. We live in a fallen world. That is why it is even possible for these things to happen. Scripture is very clear that people die because of sin (Rom. 5:12). If people are going to die, they must die from something, and that means there will be diseases that take life. But if what is happening to my wife (and will happen to all of us in some way or another, barring the Rapture) is ultimately the consequence of living in a sinful, fallen world, how can I applaud it? As a Christian, I am called to resist sin and its consequences in all forms. How, then, can I like it when the consequences of sin befall anyone, let alone a loved one? No, you don't have to like it, and if you properly understand why this is happening, you had better not like it!

It is wrong in another respect to suggest that the sufferer like what is happening. It is wrong because it ignores our humanness. Grief and sorrow in the face of tragedy are very human emotions. Unless they are admitted and expressed, they will remain inside us and destroy us. Healing can't come if we deny what we are feeling and act as though it is good that evil has occurred. Those negative feelings must be admitted, expressed and dealt with, not hidden so that the sufferer acts as though everything is all right. We can't help the afflicted if we expect them to deny their humanness.

Realizing that I didn't have to like what was happening relieved a great burden from me. But other things helped me as well. In the rest of this chapter I want to turn from things that didn't help to things that did. The things I shall mention didn't all happen at once, and in some cases it took a while after they occurred for their import to sink in. If you are wrestling with the religious problem of evil, I trust that you will read these comments with that in mind. None of it may help you now, but don't hesitate to come back to part or all of it later.

Things that helped

Though many things didn't help me, others did. One thing that did help over time came in a conversation with my father several weeks after we first received my wife's diagnosis. I was bemoaning the fact that the situation looked so hopeless. I couldn't see how I would be able to handle it as Pat got worse. And on top of that there was the prospect of having to go through the same thing with one or more of our children. I didn't know how I could take it. At that point Dad said, "John, God never promised to give you tomorrow's grace for today. He only promised today's grace for today, and that's all you need!"

How true that is! In that one comment I was reminded both of God's grace and of my need to take each day one at a time. As I have thought about those truths, God has impressed upon me the fact that I don't have to live my tomorrows today. I don't know how I'll cope when my tomorrows come, but I know that they will come only one day at a time, and with each day, even as now, there will be grace to meet each new challenge. That doesn't mean it will be fun, but it does mean that for each day God will provide the strength needed.

As a result of those truths, I began to readjust my focus from the future to the present. I would begin each day asking God for just the grace needed to sustain me that day. As that prayer was answered day after day, I gained more assurance that God would be there when things got worse. As a result, I found that I worried less about the future and focused more on the present day and its responsibilities.

Another major factor in helping me to cope, though I didn't realize it at the time, was seeing that God and others really do care. I spoke earlier of the sense of abandonment and helplessness one feels. There is a sense that an incredible burden has been put on one's shoulders, and no one is there to help carry it. In the midst of those feelings, God used various people to show me that he and others knew what I was going through and cared.

Several incidents in particular were especially meaningful. Shortly after the news came about my wife, my brother came to encourage me. I remember him saying that though I might feel abandoned at that moment, God hadn't abandoned me, and neither had he or the rest of my family. At that point I was still in such shock that I didn't realize enough to know that I was feeling a sense of abandonment. But God knew it, and sent my brother to reassure me.

I remember as well an important visit from my pastor. No one told him to come, and we hadn't asked that he come. He knew we were hurting, and he cared enough to come. I remember well what his first words to me were. He told me that he couldn't begin to know how I felt, but he wanted me to know that he really cared about what was happening, and he and the church wanted to help in any way possible. At the time, he may not have realized how right what he said was, but it was what I needed to hear. He didn't say much more, but he was willing to be there and listen. His presence said enough; he cared. At a time when it seems impossible to survive the trial and when everything appears hopeless, we need to know that someone cares and will help.

After that first visit, there were other visits, and words were matched with actions. My pastor had noticed that our home was in need of some decorating. He took it upon himself to get together a group of people from the church to come over and do it. It was his way and theirs of saying they loved us, were sorry about what had happened, and wanted to do something tangible to express that care. I remember thinking at the time that this was God's way of showing me that in a future day when I needed more involved help to care for my wife, his people would be there as well.

Not only have people at my church been helpful and caring, but so have colleagues and students at school. Students on their own initiative set aside special times each week to pray for us. Colleagues also pray for us, and both express their concern by asking periodically how we are doing and if they can help.

Those in administration at my school also showed in various ways that they cared and were willing to help. It was difficult for me to teach many of my classes at that time. Rather than scolding me or threatening to take my job, those in administration responded with patience and understanding. I was scheduled for a sabbatical that first academic year when the news came, and I didn't know how I would fulfill my responsibilities. I was in sufficient physical pain, let alone emotional stress, that I didn't know how I would be able to write during my sabbatical. I mentioned this to the president and dean, suggesting that perhaps I should postpone the sabbatical. They took a more compassionate approach. The president and board told me to take the quarter off, and to consider it a combination sabbatical and medical leave of absence. I was told not to worry about how much writing I would accomplish. Though I did in fact get much done that sabbatical, that didn't overshadow their care, concern, and compassion toward me at this difficult time.

All these events and more showed me that there were people who cared and would be there when things got worse. I also saw these things as God's sign that he cared as well. All of this ministered to me greatly and helped to overcome the feeling of abandonment, hopelessness, and helplessness.

But I realized through this in an even fuller way that God did care for me. There is part of the story I have left until now. After my wife was first diagnosed, and before we went for a second opinion, we requested a copy of my mother-in-law's chart from the hospital in New York. Because she had died some ten years earlier, and because of my wife's situation, they sent us the chart.

When the chart came, I began to look through it. My mother-in-law had been admitted to that hospital in 1967, five years before my wife and I met and married. As I read the chart, I didn't understand much of it, but one thing I saw horrified me. Within a few months of her arrival at the hospital, the family medical history and the diagnosis of Huntington's Disease were recorded in her chart. The information that could have saved me from this situation was there for five years before I even met my wife. The information that could have kept us from having children and saddling them with this burden was right there from 1967 onward. It had been there for twenty years, and no one had told us about it, even though we had sought answers. Even when we did learn the truth, it wasn't from that chart.

When I saw that information, I was furious. You can understand better why I was so angry and why I felt so cheated and misled. You can understand as well why comments about it being great to be a Calvinist at a time like this didn't comfort me but repulsed me.

But in the months and years that have passed since that revelation, I have come to see this in a different way. For twenty years that information had been there, and at any time we could have found it out. Why, then, didn't God give it to us until 1987? As I wrestled with that question, I began to see his love and concern for us. God kept it hidden because he wanted me to marry Pat. She is a great woman and wife. My life would be impoverished without her, and I would have missed the blessing of being married to her had I known earlier. God wanted our three sons to be born. Each is a blessing and a treasure, but we would have missed that had we known earlier. And God knew that we needed to be in a community of brothers and sisters in Christ at church and at the seminary who would love us and care for us at this darkest hour. And so he withheld that information, not because he accidentally overlooked giving it to us, and not because he is an uncaring, evil God who delights in seeing his children suffer. He withheld it as a sign of his great care for us. There is never a good time to receive such news, but God knew that this was exactly the right time.

I have written many words in this chapter about the need to care and show it, because I am so convinced of how crucial it is. We must show those who are hurting that we really do care. We must show it not only by saying it but also by our deeds. And, by all means, we must show it by not avoiding those who suffer. We must be there, even if only to listen. It is human nature to stay away for fear that we may say the wrong thing. Be there, anyway, even if you say nothing. Your presence and willingness to listen and help say enough. They say you care. When we keep our distance from those who suffer, we confirm their worst fears that no one cares and no one will help. Show them that someone cares. Show them not only when the initial shock comes. Show them in the weeks and months and years that follow. There is a sense in which one never completely recovers from tragedy. The need for the love and concern of others is always there.

In the midst of these problems, I was vividly reminded about how difficult it is to go on without hope. I didn't really begin to feel much relief from my pain until I began to see some rays of hope. The fact that God and others cared was reason for hope, as was the realization that God would give grace for each new day. But beyond that, friends who knew about our situation and about this disease could point to specific reasons for hope. For one thing, research on this disease continues. With advances in genetic engineering in the area of gene therapy, there is legitimate reason for hope. Of course it is possible that neither a cure nor even much help will come in time to help my wife, but research continues on this disease, and there is reason to be hopeful in regard to our children. Five to ten years in medical science is a long time.

Are these false hopes? I think not. I believe it is crucial that we give people reason for hope if we can. We must be careful not to offer false hope, but when there are real grounds for hope, we should be quick to point those out. Some of my colleagues are especially sensitive to this need. When a newspaper or journal article appears which chronicles some advance in research on Huntington's, no matter how small or insignificant the development, they make a point to show me the article. They realize that it is difficult to go on without hope, so when there are legitimate grounds for hope, they bring them to my attention.

Something else that helped me was focusing on the fact that in spite of what has happened, God is good. One particular incident made me focus on that. A little over a year after we first received news of my wife's condition, I was being considered for tenure where I teach. In the tenure review interview, I was asked a question that really stopped me in my tracks. One of the members of the committee asked, "In light of what you've been through, can you still say that God is good?" Though I answered affirmatively, I did so somewhat hesitantly. I realized that I had been focusing so much on the problems and on what God had not done, that I really hadn't paid enough attention to all the evidence of his goodness in my life.

In the months that followed, I thought a lot about how many things were going well for us. I believe that no matter how much pain and turmoil there is, it helps the sufferer to focus on ways God has shown his goodness in spite of the problems. Even if a situation seems absolutely terrible, upon reflection one can probably imagine ways for it to be worse. Counting one's blessings may seem trite, but it does in fact give a different perspective on what is happening to you.

In our case, there were many evidences of God's goodness. For one thing, for many years the disease progressed very slowly in my wife's case. Given the nature of this disease, God is the only one who can do anything about it. I have come to see that contrary to appearances, he is. At least for many years, he retarded the course of the disease. There are no guarantees for its future progression, but I can always be thankful for those extra years of relative normality in my wife's condition.

I have already mentioned the love and concern shown to us by other Christians. That continues, and periodically I am again reminded of God's goodness as I hear of people literally all over the world who somehow have heard about this and are praying for us. In addition, I have often thought that since this has happened, what a blessing to live at this time in history! During much of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century (let alone earlier), little was known about this disease. Now it is known that there is a physiological base to this disease, not a psychological one. Moreover, within the last decade or so the chromosome involved has been identified, and even the exact genetic marker has been isolated. My wife could have lived at any other time in history and still had this disease. That she and our children live now is a sign of God's goodness.

When I look at these and many other things, I can truly say that God has been and is good to us. It is easy to focus on what is going wrong. But when you stop to think about it, it is truly amazing that in a world where Satan is so dominant and sin so rampant anything ever goes right. That much does go right is ample evidence of God's grace and goodness to us. Surely we don't deserve it, and he isn't obligated to give it, but he does.

In recent years, I have continually been reminded of 1 Peter 5:7, which tells us to cast all our cares on him, because he cares for us. Usually, we focus on the first part of that verse as we remind one another not to worry about what is happening. But the latter part of the verse explains why we should do this, and I believe it is most instructive. Peter could have written, "Cast all your cares on him, for he is powerful enough to do something about it." That would be equally true as what he wrote, but I'm glad Peter wrote what he did. It's as if Peter is saying, "Of course, he's powerful enough to do something about our problems. He wouldn't be God if he weren't. What we want to know, though, is whether he cares enough to help us. And he does."

Indeed, he does care. Everywhere in our life, in spite of what may be happening, we can find ample signs that God cares if we only look for them. God does care, because he is so good, and focusing on those truths as well as reflecting on the many expressions of his goodness to us helps the sufferer feel more comfortable with this God.

In spite of all these encouragements in the midst of affliction, there will still be the nagging question of how this could happen to us. After all, it isn't just that my wife is a Christian and has given her life in service to the Lord. The question of why this should happen to her is especially nagging because it couldn't be God's retribution upon her for any sin she committed in her life. That she would get this disease was decided at the moment she was conceived!

As I thought about that, I was reminded of an unpopular but very important biblical truth I mentioned when dealing with natural evil. It is that things like this happen because we live in a fallen world. God told Adam and Eve that if they disobeyed him, they would die (Gen. 2:17). They disobeyed, and the curse fell on them, and Paul tells us that it fell on all of us as well (Rom. 5:12). Adam's sin and its consequences have been imputed to the whole race. But if people are to die, they must die of something. There are many possible causes of death, and disease is one of them. When one realizes this, one understands that though my wife committed no specific sin after birth that brought this upon her, this has happened because of sin. It is her sin in Adam, though she is no more responsible than the rest of us. That isn't the most comforting thought, but it is a healthy reminder that this isn't God's fault, but ultimately ours. And the human race was warned.

The main lesson to learn from this, however, is the enormity of sin and the need to hate it. Shortly after the news of my wife's disease came, I received what I thought a rather strange note of condolence from a friend who was teaching at another seminary. He expressed his sorrow over the news. But then he wrote, "I can imagine how angry you must be right now at sin." Frankly, I thought at the time this was a rather odd way to console someone. I knew as well that sin was the last focus of my anger, if it was a focus at all.

As I thought about what my friend wrote, I realized that he was absolutely right. This has happened and other tragic events occur, because we live in a fallen world. We may think our sins are a trifling matter, and to us they may be. But when you hear the diagnosis of a terminal disease, or when you stand at the grave of a loved one, as we did at my mother's grave and then at my father's, you get a vivid illustration of how terrible sin is. God has told us it will lead to this, but we don't take him as seriously as we should until something like this happens to us.

We may think sin is really a trivial thing, but that's what Adam and Eve thought, too, and look at the mess that resulted! We may also think the punishment (disease, troubles, and death) far outweighs the crime, a little sin. But that only underscores how far we are from God's perspective on these things. In light of our relative comfort with sin, a little sin doesn't seem so bad. From the perspective of an absolutely perfect God who has nothing to do with sin, it must be atrocious.

Think of it in the terms we considered in the last chapter. If you are a parent, you brought children into the world. You have nurtured them and provided for their needs. You have loved them deeply, and expressed that love in many different ways. In return, you simply ask that they obey you. How do you feel when they disobey? Surely their disobedience seems far more serious to you than to them. But then, how much more must it hurt God, who has given us so much and who moment by moment sustains us in existence, when we disobey him! Viewed from our perspective, sin isn't so bad, but this analogy reminds us that we need a different perspective altogether.

My friend was right. We need to see sin as God does, and hate it. When we see it from the perspective of where it ultimately leads, we begin to understand how truly serious it is and how much we must resist it. I can't say this will be of great comfort to you. But it may help you to focus your anger in the right direction. It may also help you to feel more comfortable with God as you realize that ultimately all of us, not God, have brought these things on ourselves. God warned us, but we didn't listen. Thank God that now in our troubles he will listen, forgive, and restore!

There were yet other things that happened which helped me to cope with our situation. I mentioned earlier that I also had physical problems and that the stress from my wife's situation only made matters worse. Within a few months I came to a point where I was in great pain and was of little use to anyone. I didn't have the physical stamina to preach, nor the energy to make it through my classes. I not only felt that our situation was helpless and hopeless. I felt that I was useless and that I was adding to the problem by requiring attention that should have been placed elsewhere. As with many people, my feelings of self-worth are tied in large part to my work and productivity. When I could do little to function, that only made my sense of hopelessness worse.

In the midst of this dilemma, the Lord gave me some opportunities to do things that helped other people. This was just what I needed at the time. It gave me a chance to get my focus off of our problems and on someone else's needs. Even more, it showed me that I still could be useful. Gradually, as I regained strength and was able to do more, I became increasingly thankful that I could do anything, let alone help others who had shown us so much love and concern.

For those wrestling with affliction, I would encourage the same. As you are able and when you are able, seek out ways to help others. There is therapeutic value in getting your eyes off your problems and in seeing again that you can help others. I found that this helped to lift the burden somewhat, and it showed me that when others, including my family, needed me, through God's enablement I would be able to help them.

Somewhere in the process of dealing with my emotions and my problems, something else happened that helped me greatly. I began to ask myself what my options were for handling this problem long range. Somewhere in the grieving process I think each of us must ask ourselves what the options are for addressing our problem. In my case, there were few, but they were radically diverse. On the one hand, I could continue to grieve and fall apart. But I had already done that, and it had solved nothing. I saw little improvement in my own outlook, and I was of little help to anyone else. This approach would in no way solve our problems. Beyond that, my wife still needed a husband, my children a father, and my students a teacher. Falling apart wouldn't help any of them. As Scripture says, there is a time to mourn, but then one must get on with one's life.

Well, perhaps, instead, I would get on with my life, but just exclude God from it. Many people choose this option in the face of affliction. They conclude either that there is no God or decide that there is but they will fight him. None of this was acceptable for me. I had seen too many evidences of God's working in my life to think there was no God. It made no sense to devote my life to propagating the view that there is no God. Even if that were true, there were surely more productive things I could do with my life.

Rejecting God's existence was totally unsatisfactory, but choosing to fight him was no better. God's goodness throughout my life and even now in our circumstances didn't warrant my turning from him. Moreover, it is lunacy to pick a fight you can't win. Even more, it is beyond lunacy to fight someone who, rather than being the cause of your problems, is the only possible answer to them.

Maybe I should take a Kierkegaardian leap of faith that somehow this all made sense, though I could explain none of it. In other words, I could simply ignore and bypass intellect and throw myself on God in hopes that he was there. But this didn't seem a live option for me. Some might find it attractive, but it isn't my nature to sacrifice intellect so totally. I knew there would still be the questions and that there would be no peace until they were settled. I didn't expect to find all the answers, but I knew I had to find many of them.

The only real option for me was clear. I had to continue trusting, and yes, worshiping God, and I had to get on with my life. I needed to stop the seemingly interminable deep grieving and allow emotional healing to continue by focusing on the things I have already shared and will share in this chapter. I had to focus on answers that would satisfy the emotional dimensions of my struggle and would at the same time give enough intellectual answers to warrant peace of mind. And I realized that I couldn't wait until all those answers arrived to continue with life. Too many people needed my help, and I needed to help them.

As I began to take this approach to my problems (and at some point all of us must decide how we will handle our problems), I began to focus more on the positive things I have already mentioned as well as others I shall mention. The healing and coping process continues to this day as it will through the rest of my life. I still wrestle with these issues. But God has allowed me to function again, and there is progress in dealing with these problems. I am so thankful God led me to choose the option I did for handling my situation.

God is not only there when the shock of tragic news first comes. At various points along the way when we are ready to hear it, he adds a further word. One of those words of help comes from a passage in Ecclesiastes. The passage is Ecclesiastes 7:13-14, and the thrust of the passage is that God hides the future from us so that we will trust him. Though this might seem a rather strange source of comfort, let me share it with you. The passage reads:

(13) Consider the work of God,
For who is able to straighten what He has bent?
(14) In the day of prosperity be happy,
But in the day of adversity consider-
God has made the one as well as the other
So that man may not discover anything that will be after him.

The context of these verses is significant. Commentators agree that chapter 7 contains a series of aphorisms, though they don't always agree on how they fit together. Generally, much of chapter 7 focuses on things that at first appear undesirable in order to show that in fact they have a certain benefit. Chapter 6 shows that things that look good also have a down side. The ultimate message is that we can't always take things at face value, nor should we think we can always understand them. And if this is true of things we do and experience, how much more is it true of God and his ways! This is the context of verses 13-14.

In the passage itself, the writer begins by emphasizing the sovereign power of God (v. 13). Verse 13b is a rhetorical question, and the answer is obvious. Some think this verse means that if God brings something we consider evil, we can't make it good (straighten it). We can't overturn God's powerful hand. While this interpretation surely fits verse 14 and its teaching about God's bringing of adversity, I think the writer's point is even more general. That is, just as no one can straighten what God bends, no one can bend what he straightens. No one can overturn what God does; man must simply submit to God's providence.

All of this suggests that adversity and prosperity are all under God's hand. Verse 14 confirms that, for it says God sends both good and bad. The writer tells us to be happy in the good days. Out of fear of the future, we might be troubled even when things are going well. That worry will help us learn nothing about the future, but it may destroy the happiness in the present that we should be and could be having.

The writer then says that in evil days, we should consider. He doesn't say that in evil days we should be sad, for he doesn't need to. That comes naturally. Instead, we should consider. We should think about what has happened, think about the alternation of good and bad, and realize that no one knows when which will come. In fact, what appears to be good may turn out evil and vice versa. Things aren't always as they seem.

Why does God give this alternation of good and bad? Why doesn't he always reveal how things will turn out? The writer says God does this to conceal the future ("so that man may not discover anything that will be after him"). But why would God do that? Though the answer isn't explicit in the text, I think it is implicit. If we don't know what to expect, we must just wait on the Lord for what will come next and entrust it all to him. We may want to change what he will do, but verse 13 reminds us that we can't. We must submit to his providence and simply trust him. If we knew the details of our future, we might think we could figure out what we would need to do. In short, we might think there was no need to trust God.

God conceals the future, so we must trust him. You can see how this truth fit so specifically our situation. It wasn't only relevant to us before we learned the news that was for so long available but untouched. It is relevant now as we contemplate the course of this disease and our children's futures as well.

What are the implications of this truth? If God conceals the future so that we must trust him, doesn't that mean God manipulates us and events to get us to love him? Maybe he can't get our love and trust any other way, so he manipulates things to force us to trust him. If that is so, this is no God worthy of praise and worship! This isn't a good God! This is a conniving, manipulative God who has created us solely for his benefit, and really doesn't care about us after all.

As I thought about the implications of this truth, I realized that God isn't an evil God. By concealing the future, God does make us trust him, but I submit that this isn't manipulative, but compassionate! It is compassionate in a number of ways.

It is compassionate, because knowing the details of our future would be harmful to us. Suppose our future would be good. No doubt we would be relieved, but the joy of discovery would be gone. What should be great when it happens would lose its excitement as a surprise. We might even be bored. The joy of anticipation would be gone. Revealing a good future might also make us complacent in our relation to God, and that would be bad. We might conclude that we don't need him, but obviously we do.

Suppose our future would be evil. Barring the return of the Lord for the church, Scripture and common sense teach that the ultimate end of this life is death, and that is evil. But if we knew how or when it would end or even what evils would befall us along the way, we might be totally horrified and unable to act as fear paralyzed us. Hiding the future is compassionate, because knowing the future could easily harm us.

Hiding the future is also compassionate because we must not ignore the present, but we might if we knew the future. If the future is good and we know what it will be, we might become impatient with the present. Think of how things are now even without knowing the future specifically. When we anticipate an exciting summer vacation, we become impatient with the present. In essence, we overlook the good things that are happening now, and lose the present. On the other hand, if our future is evil, we might spend much of our time worrying about it or grieving over our anticipated misfortune. The net result in either case could well be a wasting of the present and never really "living" at all.

One of the things that our experiences have done for me is to focus my attention on the present. I have always been a goal-oriented person with a focus on the future. I still plan for the future, but now for the near future, not the distant future. I don't want to know any more about the distant future than I already do. I find myself focusing more on the present and enjoying it more. In fact, I am better able to cope when I focus on where my wife is today, rather than on where she may be in her condition somewhere down the road. I don't have tomorrow's grace yet, and I don't need it until tomorrow! We must not be so overly occupied with the future that we lose today. God has hidden the future so that we might trust him. He is compassionate in doing so.

God is compassionate in hiding the future as well because we would probably try to change it if we knew it. This is especially true if it is evil, but even if it is good we might try to change it to make it better. But as verse 13 suggests, it is impossible to change what God has decided to do. Why waste the present trying to change something you can't change? In the process, you may drive yourself crazy.

God's hiding of the future is also compassionate because we couldn't handle the information in some cases if we had it. Especially if the future is evil and if we see it all at once, it could be too horrifying for us to take. On November 4, 1987 I caught a glimpse of the future that just about destroyed me. I am more than willing now to take the future one day at a time. In most cases God compassionately reveals the details of our futures moment by moment, and that is enough. As Scripture says, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" (Matt. 6:34, KJV). We don't need to know tomorrow's evil today!

Though all the things I have shared were sources of comfort and encouragement, something still seemed wrong. There seemed to be a basic unfairness about what was happening. And, frankly, I believe this is a sticking point for many people which makes it so difficult for them to live with God. Put simply, why was this happening to us, and not also to other people? Wasn't it unjust of God to ask us to bear this burden, and not others? Please do not misunderstand. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, but it seemed only fair that if others escape, we should, too. If God could keep others from this fate, why couldn't he keep us from it? It's not that he owes any of us anything per se, but justice seems to show that he owes us at least as good a shake as the next person.

I suspect that most who experience significant tragedy in their life have thought this way at some point. I surely had those thoughts, but I came to see that they contain an error. In philosophical discussions of justice, there is a distinction between what is called distributive justice and egalitarian justice. Distributive justice refers to rendering each person what is their due. If you do good, in strict justice you are owed good. If you do evil, in strict justice you deserve punishment. Egalitarian justice, however, is giving everyone the same thing, regardless of merits or deserts.

Now I saw where the source of the problem was. It isn't just that we think distributive justice mandates a better fate for us since we think we have done good. Our complaint is that we expect God to deal with the world with egalitarian justice. We expect him to treat everyone the same, and that means I should escape an affliction if others do!

Once I realized this, I immediately asked why God is obligated to operate in these matters on the basis of egalitarian justice. Given the demands of distributive justice, all of us as sinners deserve nothing but punishment. Why, then, is God obligated to respond to us in egalitarian terms? I could not answer that. I realized that if God really did handle us according to egalitarian justice, we would all either experience the same torture or be equally blessed. Neither of those ideas squares with the God of the Scriptures. It was a tremendous help to realize that part of my anger stemmed from thinking that God is obligated to treat us with egalitarian justice, even though he isn't. Once I realized that he has no such obligation, I understood that much of my anger rested on a misunderstanding of what God is expected to do.

But even this principle doesn't solve the problem. Even if God isn't obligated to give any of us more than we deserve, and even if what we deserve is punishment for sin, still God has chosen to be gracious to some. If you are suffering from some affliction, you may feel that God should have extended equal grace to you as he has to those who never confront your affliction. God must be unjust for not extending as much grace to you as to the next person.

Though this objection is understandable, it is still wrong. The objection now has moved from a demand that God treat us with egalitarian justice to a demand that God dole out egalitarian grace. This is wrong in two respects. In the first place, God is no more obligated to give the same grace to everyone than he is to give the same justice to all. He is obligated only to distribute what we deserve. The other point is that since we are talking about grace, the charge of injustice on God's part (and that is really what the sufferer means by this complaint) can't even arise. Grace is unmerited favor. That means you get something good that you don't deserve. But if I don't merit it at all, it can't be unjust that my neighbor gets more grace than I do. It can be unjust only if God is obligated to treat us with egalitarian grace, and he surely isn't. In fact, He isn't obligated to treat us with any kind of grace. That's why it's grace, and not justice. And that is also why it can't be unjust if someone gets more grace than another. God owes none of us any grace. If he graciously chooses to give some of us a better (by our evaluation) lot than others, that is his right. He has done nothing wrong. There can't be any requirements placed on grace lest we turn it into justice.

Though these principles about grace and justice won't relieve the pain of what you are experiencing, if they are properly understood, they can help dissipate anger toward God. I have found it to be liberating, and I frequently remind myself of these principles when I am inclined to lament that God has given others an easier lot than I.

I close this chapter hoping that what you have read will minister to your needs and will help you minister to others who are hurting. It hasn't been an easy chapter to write, and I would give anything not to have learned what I have learned in the way I did. But if the chapter is helpful to you, then it has been worth my effort to write it.

I close as well with a final thought. It is especially relevant to those who are believers and suffer as righteous individuals. It was something I needed to see, and it helped me as well when I realized it. John says the world didn't understand Christ, so we who are the children of God and follow Christ can expect to be misunderstood and persecuted as well (1 John 3:1). Jesus told his disciples that following him means bearing a cross (Matt. 16:24). Scripture is also very clear that those who follow God are engaged in a war with those who don't (Eph. 6:12; 1 Pet. 5:8-9).

Yes, we are engaged in a spiritual war. But did you think you could go to war, even be in the front lines of the battle, and never get wounded?

I did. At least, I never expected a wound like the one we got. But I have come to see that this was unrealistic. The enemy is very real, and has many ways of attacking those who would follow God. Knowing that there will be attack and battle wounds doesn't mean the wounds don't hurt. But it does help us assess more accurately what has happened. One may wish exemption from the battle, but that isn't possible. One may even contemplate changing sides as many do when confronted with tragedy, but that option isn't the answer to our problems for either time or eternity.

There were other afflictions that came during the trials I have mentioned, just as I know there will be others in the future. The story isn't finished yet. Just as there have been some surprises already (some welcome, some unwelcome), God has others in store. When the wounds of battle come, and they will come, we need the comfort and care of God. I am so thankful God is there to give it!