“How could God let something like this happen?” I have no answer. My neighbor lost her husband at age 65. They were poised for retirement, with grandchildren to spoil and trips to take together. Illness and death erased all that.
Her husband and my own were diagnosed with cancer within months of each other. Throughout their illnesses we shared doctors and treatments, home remedies and information. Treatments that worked for her husband did not work for mine, and vice versa. We knew eventually nothing would work. Still, we had each other, and we grew closer through it all.
Again and again she asks, “How could God let something like this happen?” I have no answer, so I just listen.
A verse from Psalm 27 runs through my head: “I believe I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” I have seen that goodness. Friends and family have revealed it, delivering the bounty of the Lord on my doorstep. That’s the only response I can make.
This message was adapted from the “Blessings in the Midst of Suffering” Bible study written by Martha E. Stortz that first appeared in the May 2008 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine.
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