Grappling.

Here's what I know: God is good. He's sovereign, loving, kind, merciful, just, righteous, gentle, powerful, creative, forgiving, and patient. I believe these things to my core. I know that I know that I know they're true.

But.

Here's what I also know: life is full of all kinds of suffering. A dear friend has just been diagnosed with incurable cancer. An orphan in America was born with a virus that will most likely leave him in a vegetative state. Whole people groups are dying in Uganda because they don't have clean water. Suffering is as far as I can see.

We listen to a catechism CD with Moo, and the first few questions are:

Who made you? (God did.)

What else did God make? (God made all things.)

Why did God make you and all things? (For his own glory.) 

So, here's the rub. I believe God made all things for His glory, BUT I'm struggling to see how cancer and feeding tubes and slow suffering bring Him glory. My tendency in the face of suffering is to either conclude that God just can't be good or to sweep suffering away with trite comments about God's sovereignty.

The truth is that that both exist. Simultaneously. God is good AND suffering will happen...to all of us, at some point, in some way. And I don't claim to understand that, but I know it to be true both personally and scripturally.

I do believe there's a bigger story going on, one I don't always see and one in which every confusing detail of life has a place. But that doesn't mean suffering isn't hard now, isn't overwhelming sometimes, isn't confusing and horrific and evil. Strangely, though, the times I've walked most closely with God have been times of great suffering, and isn't nearness to God is worth walking through the shadow of death this side of Heaven?