He is Good.

         A friend of mine was asking that age old question: Why does God let bad things happen? 

     It is hard to understand why bad things happen to good people... to HIS people... but, I don't believe that is ever part of His perfect plan... it is truly because we live in a fallen world that difficult, very hard things happen to us.

     We can't understand it well from our perspective because we see everything in a linear time frame, but when He sees our lives, He sees the beginning from the end. This was the perspective that comforted me when my sister died.

     It made no sense to me. Her children needed a mother. Her husband needed a wife... I needed a sister... I still can't see how this was His best for our family. However, before she ever lived, He saw her whole life. He knew it would be a life that lasted only 40 years and 9 months long. He saw that it was a valuable life, even if it was much shorter than some lives... and, truthfully, it was longer than other lives... she lived her WHOLE life.... not a life cut short, as we see it, but in its entirety, as He sees it. 

     He wasn't shocked or surprised when she died, like I was. He knew there was more to the story... for her, in Heaven, and for her children, her husband, and even for me.... I'm still learning how to live this life without my sister in it. I still don't like it, but He has been very good to me in the process. He doesn't do these things *to us* ... but He allows them because He sees beyond them... which we can't do.

 
    For us, it feels like life is ending, but He sees the start of something new... for those who return to Him and those of us left behind. For those of us going through financial hardship, or relational struggles, or health challenges, etc... He sees the work He is doing in us, which we can only get glimpses of.

     Before Jesus lived, when tragedy struck and many, many people, especially young children died due to illness, injury, or even at birth, and those parents had no hope to see their children again. There was no provision for it. 

     When God sent His Son to die for us, it was to make provision for this very problem... so that we can be with Him and our loved ones once again... THAT gives us HOPE. And, hope gives us comfort. He is the God of all comfort. His Son had to die to make that happen... He understands grief.

     I can only come back to this: He is good.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 

For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, 

so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 

2 Cor 1: 1-5 NIV