This has to be the hardest question to deal with if you are trying to validate a loving God, you don’t even have to be a grieving parent for this to stir a livid hatred towards a possible God or the other extreme is a grieving parent that will believe anything they are told for a chance to hold their child again. So, the question is if God is so loving and so powerful, how does he let this happen to an innocent child?
If you haven’t yet read one of my other pages on the death of Jesus, please do as it forms part of the explanation I offer as well as reading scripture purely on the last day of Jesus and what he went through. To explain it I need to talk like God is indeed a fact, a loving God in heaven watching over all his creation.
Now working with people under my leadership, I never ask anything of those under me to do anything that I am not willing to or do myself, there are rules and regulations from both the owner and the industry that I have to follow and it’s like that right across the board for everyone, God included. But in God’s case, it was he that made the rules that even he has to follow, no exceptions.
Scripture teaches us that this life is indeed temporary, though science will tell you that the first person to live forever has already been born. By the time this person is 30, science will be able to prolong his life by say 30 years, then in another 20 years prolong its life for another 50 years. In another 100 years science is expected to be able stop the aging process entirely. But even still, life is very fragile and forever is quite a long time, man is man’s own worst enemy.
Parameters might change but the rules do not and God does not ask anything of you that he hasn’t asked of himself. God in heaven didn’t just watch his most favoured son (Jesus) go through the most horrific nightmare imaginable, he knew all things had led to this, this was always going to happen and he was going to stand by and watch. As his most favoured son was being scourged to the point of near death, Angels were screaming at God to stop this brutality. God himself knowing he has the power to stop this at any moment yet he felt every stroke that drew more blood, he felt the fear of his heart with every additional infliction of pain and yet God let it continue.
Jesus was not an innocent lamb walking willingly to its own slaughter, he was carried there and delivered by his own father and handed over to the wolves to be devoured. A loving father watched one child perish so that all his other children may be saved by the law that he himself imposed.
The point so far is that no one is alone in their pain, no one hurts without God himself feeling every aspect of it but this alone offers nothing without a more encompassing understanding. Many of us place all importance upon this life and understandably so for without faith we only have what we can see, touch and feel. We all have to exit this life, though there is only one way to enter this life, there are many ways to exit it. It is when the end is full of suffering that we struggle with the most. I can’t justify any struggle but God tries to teach us to understand that all these struggles were only ever designed to be temporary, all worldly suffering will come to an end but sadly some paths through this suffering will be truly unbearable.
The worst deaths surely come from the hands of man, a creature created to be so kind and loving, yet in the same vessel comes atrocities beyond comprehension. Deaths by the hand of man can be by far the very worst ways to die, surpassing by far any natural cause or sickness. God has designed in some safety measures like endorphins the body can release to ease prolonged pain or blacking out when the pain gets too intense. I’ve come close to blacking out from intense pain but at least I knew it was temporary and I couldn’t imagine knowing life will end with that amount of pain let alone the fear or terror that could be associated with it especially at the hands of man. When the suffering is great, whether at the hands of God or the hands of man, we pray for an end to their pain or we pray they didn’t suffer to long (Annita Cobby and so many others at the hands of man). At the end, we grieve for their loss, we grieve for ourselves losing them, their life came to an end and all to often, so unfairly. That’s the blessing of life, for many we can count our blessings while for others there simply isn’t a blessing to be counted besides, they were loved. That love alone is their greatest gift, that love alone gives their life meaning making it a life worth living no matter the ending. You love them and God loves them even though you couldn’t see it or understand.
God does teach us that a child does not stand before judgment, when God took your child, it doesn’t matter how big a handful they are or how cheeky, God takes them into his love and care, so yes, once the suffering is over all children make it to Heaven. Excuses for suffering I can’t give, in the diversity of life there is so many variations on what we are given, would we appreciate life if there was no suffering? If we all took life for granted, there would be a lot less appreciation which would surely lead to senselessness beyond belief. If man can be so bad and cruel now, imagine if mankind was just a little bit more bored with life. I’m so sorry for those of you that have seen the kind of suffering I can’t explain here, no one can explain it. I just pray I can help you get past it by some form of understanding, I do partially understand your fears, my youngest son needed an operation at just 6 months old where the cranial facial team removed the top half of his skull and thankfully put him back together for a successful operation, those fears were hard to deal with and my dose was moderate to what others have to go through, faith will help but it won’t relinquish all the suffering.