God in the Midst of Thorns: A Journey of Faith, Hope, Strength, and Justice

By Christopher Talley and Hilda Talley

Christopher and Hilda Talley were living what they thought was the American dream. They had two beautiful and healthy daughters, a comfortable home, cars, clothes, food on the table, a wonderful faith community, and two terrific jobs they loved. They played at life just as hard as they worked for their lifestyle, traveling in the United States and to foreign lands as often as possible.

But in 1999, that all came crashing down. Hilda went from a happy and healthy person to someone who struggles for every breath she takes, after an inadequately trained pesticide tech came into her office. Two minutes after he left, she was fighting for her life. The chemical permanently damaged her lungs and vocal cords and led to two debilitating diseases: reactive airways dysfunction syndrome and vocal cord dysfunction. Their family life changed instantly.

In God in the Midst of Thorns, Christopher and Hilda share their story, a story intertwined with the testament of God’s love and the power of Christian community, as they began their journey of learning to live a new normal. The Talleys discuss how, in their struggle for understanding, they both found a new and deeper relationship with God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973661160

Christopher Talley

  Christopher and Hilda Talley are a husband and wife team who met each other when they were nine and ten years old, respectively. They were raised in the Appalachian Mountains. Christopher has been serving in full-time ministry for more than thirty years in the United Methodist Church. Hilda worked full time in the corporate world until her pesticide exposure in 1999. They have children and grandchildren.

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 Christopher and Hilda Talley.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-6115-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-6114-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-6116-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019905010

WestBow Press rev. date: 7/24/2019

Dedicated to:

Our two beautiful daughters and wonderful son-in-laws:

Leisa and James

Kitty and Tommy

And to our 3 granddaughters

We affectionally call the 3 C’s

And to Peter our Rock through all the legal proceedings

And to Dr. John and Dr. Luke who will always hold a special place in our lives,

Who honored God’s calling to help us in our darkest thorn times.

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1   Excuses!

Chapter 2   A Miracle in Our Arms

Chapter 3   Seeking Justice

Chapter 4   Learning to Fully Trust in God

Chapter 5   Focusing on God

Chapter 6   Strength for Tomorrow

Chapter 7   God’s Perfect Timing

Chapter 8   Good to Go Back in Time

Chapter 9   Searching for Answers

Chapter 10   On the Road to Hope

Chapter 11   A Time for Everything

Chapter 12   God’s Faithfulness

Chapter 13   Satan in the Jury Box

Chapter 14   Praise for Thorn Lessons

Chapter 15   Forgiveness and Love

Afterword

Study Notes

Foreword

This is a love story: between a woman and a man and between God and two human beings. It is not the joyful celebration of a wedding where the focus is on the positive things of the future, for better, for richer, and in health. Rather, it is about the power of love in a marriage living out the real-life experiences for worse, for poorer, and in sickness. Furthermore, it is not a first-love story of a believer surrendering one’s life to God. Rather, it is about the difficult task of building a love relationship with God in a confusing and mysterious world.

This is also a story about faith. No human being is exempt from the struggle to build faith and trust in a marriage or from the challenging questions of God’s existence and the search for meaning in life. Some of us are fortunate to have real life proof of God’s existence to build our faith upon. Jesus appeared to Thomas after his resurrection when he struggled to believe what his fellow disciples had been telling him that Jesus was alive, and he said, Put your finger here and see my hands. (John 20:27) Then Jesus said to the rest of us, Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. (John 20:29) This is a story about the journey of faith that gives us the assurance of things we hope for, the conviction of things we do not see. The greatest faith is not faith without any doubts but faith without any evidence.

Even though this is love story, it is not a romantic fairytale where in the end all of life returns to perfect harmony and everyone lives happily ever after. Neither, is it a story that moves to a climax at the end of the book where perfect love and perfect faith emerges. Rather, it is a journey of Hilda’s life that she recorded in her journal over many years. You will not find love and faith at the end of the book, or at the end of chapter four or chapter thirteen. Where you will find love and faith is in the long, long periods of time when Hilda struggles for her next breath.

It is truly amazing how time slows down in the middle of a crisis. The time is takes for one to experience some kind of relief can feel like an eternity. These are eternal moments for Hilda when she prays her longest prayers, has extended conversations with God, and senses God’s presence and hears God’s word. This is the time when her soul-mate bends over her and kisses her on the cheek as his fingers gently run across her face and through her hair. It is also the time when the presence of God blankets her with peace conveying to her that God is with her at all times, even when she does not feel or see God. Furthermore, this is the time when God affirms God’s approval of her by calling her to do a special task for God that only she can do.

This story is a road map of faith and love. If we have the courage to walk moment by moment with Hilda and Christopher on their journey through raw human experiences and life-shattering questions, our own faith will grow. I invite you to openly and honestly bare yourself before God as you read this book, just as Hilda and Christopher have opened themselves up to the whole world. If you do, this book has the power to change your life.

Rev. John W. Hagen Jr.

Preface

This book is about faith, hope, strength, and perseverance; the quest for justice in the midst of God’s love; and living with the human condition. Most everyone has experienced human loss and injustice in their lives. There are many transcripts about tragedy and pain. It is our hope that this work will offer insight into God’s grace and help with the darkest of our human conditions.

All life starts with pain! Because Adam and Eve chose to sin in the garden of Eden as portrayed in the Bible in the book of Genesis, pain and death were sin’s penalties. During labor and birth, new mothers experience human pain. The child being born also experiences great pain. To think we are born into a world without pain is not realistic.

My wife, Hilda, had her life turned upside down in an instant. She went from a happy and extremely healthy person to someone who struggles for every breath she takes. She was exposed to a chemical agent that damaged her lungs and vocal cords and led to two permanent disabilities called reactive airways dysfunction syndrome and vocal cord dysfunction. Our family life changed instantly. Our story is intertwined with God’s love and the power of Christian community, as we began our journey of learning to live a new normal, questioning God, trying to decipher God’s will, and trying to make sense of our new reality.

At first, like most people might do, we tried to ignore the impact of the tragedy, thinking that soon Hilda would be better and things would be back to normal. We prayed diligently for God to heal her broken lungs and vocal cords, and we truly believed her healing would come quickly. We even tried to justify our situation by either blaming God for allowing this to happen or accepting it as God’s will. In our struggle for understanding, we have both found a new and deeper relationship with God.

Our journey to find justice at times left us feeling isolated, lonely, and broken and even made us doubt if God even listened to our pleas for relief. We both now understand that God never left us, God never stopped loving us, and God always heard our cries for help. Over time, we have both come to understand God in a new way. We now see God as a God of faith. His promises are true, his nature is constant, his love never fails, and his grace is truly sufficient. It took time, patience, and much perseverance to gain this new understanding of God.

It was God in the midst of our suffering who made himself known to us in new ways. We pray that none of you reading this ever have to experience tragedy the way we have in our life. We also know many, many people have already experienced far greater tragedy than ours. Regardless of your level of difficulty or lack of difficulties in this life, our goal with this book is to help provide some of the insight God has shown to us and some of the practical lessons we have learned from not blaming God or trying not to put what happened to us in a framework of its being God’s will.

There are two ways you might use this book: First, it can simply be read as an inspired by a true story publication about life and the challenges we faced with God and the human condition. Second, it can be used as a Bible study for a small group, Sunday school class, book club, or other such gathering. We have included discussion materials for each chapter at the end of the book, in the hopes that a conversation might stir up insight and the Holy Spirit may be able to shed God’s love on others who hurt, or who have doubt in God and their circumstance, or who are struggling with a loving God in a not so loving world.

This is our story. It is unique to our situation; it is our truth. To protect the innocent, we have changed the names of those involved and the locations of these events. Our goal is to do no harm and to do only good in our quest to share a story we have chosen to title God in the Midst of Thorns: A Journey of Faith, Hope, Strength, and Justice.

Chapter 1

Excuses!

But Moses said to God, Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?

—Exodus 3:11

Christopher’s Memory

Have you ever had a life-changing experience, one in which your world collapsed around you and nothing would ever again be the same? Maybe it was a bad diagnosis, the loss of a loved one, an accident, a divorce, the loss of a job, or general unwelcome news. Perhaps you experienced an injustice in the legal system. How did you handle the situation? Did you run as fast as possible away from God? Did you blame God for everything? Or did you run right into his arms, asking, begging, and pleading for strength, comfort, and peace? Did you question God, asking why this happened or how it could happen? Did you ask what the purpose was for all these trials? Did you stand and fight, or did you run and hide? Did you fall down a well into deep depression or despair, only to find you must choose to live in your well or do the difficult task of climbing out of it? Did you see any rainbows of blessings in your situation, those blessings that were right before you but that you were just too blinded by grief and pain to see at the time?

These are just a small sampling of the questions Hilda and I asked ourselves. Oh, there were a great many others that have come to our minds over these many years. To be perfectly honest, our world changed in an instant, in ways we would have never thought of or predicted. It was very mysterious to us, foreign by its sheer nature. My Hilda went from a happy, joyful, hardworking, and active woman to a person who literally has to fight for every breath she takes, as has been the case for almost two decades now. Being thankful for every moment and every breath was something she, and I too, took for granted until a December day long, long ago.

Hilda wrote some beautiful words after the birth of our first granddaughter and some of her experience, which I could not re-create. Her inspiration after such difficulties brings her hope and life and shows her how God continues to love, heal, and teach in all situations. Together, we have learned to trust God, who never abandons us, who constantly loves us, and yes, who walks every step with us in difficult times. These words of hopes, dreams, difficulties, and blessings are pinned as a legacy for others who suffer and are a message to our grandchildren in the hopes that they too will always learn to trust a loving God in all life situations, especially the difficult ones.

Hilda’s words are meaningful, insightful, and heartfelt and bring meaning to life itself.

Hilda’s Memory

As a family, we were living the dream! We had two beautiful and healthy daughters, Kitty and Leisa, a comfortable home, cars, clothes, food on the table, a wonderful faith community, and two terrific jobs we loved and worked very hard at. We played at life just as hard as we worked for our lifestyle, traveling in the United States and to foreign lands as often as possible. God created this world of ours, and we wanted to explore as much of his creation as we could.

Creation is a marvelous thing. It is very mysterious—well, to humankind, but not to God. I was privileged to witness our first granddaughter take her first breath and to hear her first cry, I knew I needed to write some of our story for her. Christopher and I wanted to give her encouragement when facing the dark thorny times of life.

When my circumstances changed, I grew to understand unconditionally the importance of treating every day as a gift from God. Indeed, life can change in the blink of an eye. I have felt death many times. I have been on the brink of breathing my last breath many times and have had to experience having a machine actually push breath into my lungs in an effort to keep life within me. I pray I am here for my grandchildren, but I live in a reality, unknown to many, of just how precious life truly is, how good God is, and how faithful he is. And I want my grandchildren to know God’s love for me and for them. Passing on this knowledge to the next generation in our family has been my focus and is my purpose for this work, but I am also doing this for others who know me, who now will understand fully how I can have a smile on my face and love in my heart for all who hear my story.

God put it on my heart many years ago to write a book, but I found myself running from this task as fast as possible. Sure, other friends and family told me I should write a book, but I told them, I only write for therapy. But then our first granddaughter came into our lives, and everything changed. It is funny how hard and fast we run from something God puts on our hearts to accomplish, but then a miraculous and glorious event such as the birth of a new life takes place. God seems to get our attention in one way or another, and then we can no longer run. We have to open our hearts and face the thing we are running from, perhaps the thing we dread the most.

Facing our own fears and realizing just how difficult life can be is a daunting task that comes with the realization that in an instant, life as we once experienced it has changed and will never be the same. It seemed unfair for God to want me to face the giant in my life, the proverbial elephant in the middle of the living room. What good could come from remembering all the pain, all the suffering, all the misery, and the uncertainty that has come into my life? I justified not responding to God’s call by trying to convince myself that these struggles were mine and no one else’s. This was personal, not communal—and what good could come out of it if I answered God and shared my sad story, a humiliating story at times?

I made many excuses and asked God, Why would you, God, want me to write down a glimpse of all the pain and suffering I have been through and share my intimate thoughts and prayers and the darkness that surrounded each event with strangers and friends and most of all with my family? I have kept these things between me and you, God. God, you know I am not a prolific writer. Find someone else who has had a similar experience and more skills at writing, and let them do it. Then one day when I was struggling about this thing God wanted me to do, during my devotional time the story of Moses came up. I reread about Moses in the Bible and how he made many excuses to God, beginning in the Old Testament in Exodus 3 and continuing in Exodus 4. However, verses 10–13 of chapter 4 made an impact on me: Moses said to the Lord, ‘O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.’ The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.’ But Moses said, ‘O Lord, please send someone else to do it.’ I realized I was like Moses! I was giving excuse after excuse, until the Lord finally got my attention, although not through a burning bush. For me it was the birth of a granddaughter.

As I began writing to my granddaughter, another event took place that also got my attention, but in a totally unique way. Christopher and I were going about our normal daily lives. While at work he received an unexpected phone call from an old friend. Arthur, who is the manager of a major television station in the big city of Snaith, had received a call from a producer in New York asking the question, Do you know of someone who has been exposed to a pesticide and can come on our show to share their story?

As a matter of fact, I do. Let me make a phone call and see if they would be interested in telling their story, Arthur had replied.

After a lengthy conversation with Arthur, Christopher phoned me and said words I had longed to hear: Hilda, I just got a phone call from Arthur. Someone from a nationally syndicated television show wants to know if you would like to come on their show and share your experience.

I sat down. I was shaking and began crying uncontrollably. What?! I replied. God got my attention that day! Within a few days we were on a plane flying to New York City to film a show knowing that three and a half million people would watch. This also came as an affirmation, without a doubt, that God did not want me to write just for my granddaughter but also for others.

My mother always said, Words are powerful! They can build up or tear down, so choose your words wisely. She was correct; words can build up or tear down a person’s life. Our story is not a very nice story. Some of the words we must use are unkind in nature. They are truthful but not pleasant. In our humanness, we seek to be kind, loving, and supportive. Sometimes in life we must be brutally honest, not to inflict hurt but to assist in a process of healing. If we are going to tell this story, we have to include all the story, the good and the bad. Our prayer is that our story will be received as a blessing and not as a story to bash those who we perceive wronged us. This true story may be difficult to read. You may find it difficult to understand how these events unfolded in a world where justice is usually understood as a basic pattern for life, especially in the United States of America. We write in love, we trust in God, and we hope to share our faith, our hearts, and the truths of our reality.

Many words spoken in our lives live in our memories, sometimes until we take our last breaths. I still hear my mother’s voice and see her shaking her finger as she was about to give me a life lesson:

• My Hilda, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.

• You reap what you sow. If you sow kindness, it will come back to you. I’d rather reap kindness. Wouldn’t you?

• Telling the truth is always best because a lie always has a way of catching up to you eventually.

• Fight for what you believe in, but remember that everyone has a voice.

• Be the best you can be, and work hard at it.

• Work hard in life, and that way you can appreciate everything more.

• Challenging work gives us pride in ourselves and our accomplishments.

• When you work no matter the task, cleaning a toilet or some other task, do your best. After all, there are no small tasks. The scripture says, ‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men’ (Colossians 2:23).

• Always leave a place better than you found it.

• Take pride in your work.

• When you love and serve God and others, life is always brighter.

Her words still guide my life today and are ingrained in my mind forever. She taught me that our words and actions are reflections of who we are and shows whose we are. Mom taught me about God and how faith in God can get you through all the darkest times of your life. She taught me that God can turn pain and suffering in your life into something perfect for him to use for his glory and honor. She always said, Stay true to God and yourself, and everything will fall into place at just the right time. God’s timing is always perfect. I have learned in my life that what Satan intends for evil, God can always use for his good and his children’s good. God is in control of everything, but your faith in him and the decisions you make in life, my dear, are up to you to determine. Words of wisdom to live by!

Some of God’s greatest work is when he takes the disasters of our lives and turns them into blessings for his kingdom. Satan thinks he is winning, while all the time God’s plans are playing out. The light of Christ will shine, and all the darkness will be put away. Christopher and I have learned that in this battle of good and evil, these two forces are not equal in power. They never have been. God is light, and evil is darkness. Darkness cannot not overcome light. Satan has no power over God. Good always wins. One of my favorite Bible verses is 1 John 1:5: This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. The victory may not come as we had planned or as we had hoped, but rest assured, in the end God always gets the victory when his children trust in his Word and put their trust in Jesus Christ.

Mother always told me too, God opens doors at just the right moment for his glory to shine. Walk through them, and see what God has for you to do.

So, we invite you, the reader, to step into our story. Our prayer is that you will see that God can use your pain and suffering to help others in need. We are all called to be his witnesses and to share our faith story so that others may be healed in ways we can only imagine. God can use you!

We invite you to sit on the jury and listen to our story and the defendant’s story. What would your verdict be? Would you be willing to listen to truth, or would you perhaps drift into the ways of the world, a place where power, greed, and a desire to win at all costs far supersedes any guilt of misrepresenting truth and crushing the human spirit—all for a chance to bend reality for selfish gain. We have come to understand there are many realities of life. Not all of them are caring, compassionate, or even kind-spirited. Some realities of life are hurtful, mean-spirited, and pure evil in nature. In our story, the phrase follow the money takes on a very real truth in modern justice and resolution or the lack thereof. It is with God’s help that we share our memories of the nightmarish daunting days as we sought answers to the difficulties presented by our life experiences. We also hope you will understand that there were many, many times God blessed us in unique and unexpected ways. We acknowledge that God has made us so wonderful that we can both praise him and grieve loss at the same time.

Chapter 2

A Miracle in Our Arms

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

—Psalms 139:13–14

Hilda’s Memory

Yes, siree, it was a zip-a-dee-doo-dah kind of day, as my uncle used to say. Uncle Odas described such a day as one where there is an extra skip in your step and a bounce in your walk. You know a special blessing is coming your way. There was a song in my and Christopher’s hearts that could not be contained. It was a day like no other day we have ever experienced—the birth of the first grandchild! Months of waiting for our precious baby girl were coming to an end. Today, our names would be forever changed to Oma and Opa!

The blue sky was highlighted by thin white windswept cirrus clouds that looked like strings of noodles in the sky. A strong north wind was blowing, bringing with it a chill in the air. Some of the leaves broken from their tree branches danced in the sky, doing loops, twisting and turning, each in a unique graceful dance, and those on the ground, scurried by our feet in a great hurry and hugged our ankles as they passed by. The grass wrestled with the wind, each blade bent over at the whim of the wind. Yes, it was the most glorious day ever!

Arriving at the hospital, we anxiously walked down the hall of the labor and delivery unit toward our daughter’s room. Passing by room after room, we heard groans of those experiencing labor pains, and their coaches cheering them on to breathe through the contraction pain. There were cries of new life entering this world and shouts of joy from new parents and grandparents. I could not help but smile because we too were about to become grandparents. We imagined how we would feel when we saw our precious girl for the first time. Would we have the same reaction as we had just heard? Would we shout? Would we cry? Or would we be in such great awe that we would just sit babbling like fools? Or perhaps we’d feel a little bit of all these emotions?

Over the past months, we had pictured the face we fell so deeply in love with on the ultrasound, but exciting questions came to our minds: Will she have red hair or dark hair? What color eyes will she have? What will she …? Oh, it won’t matter, because we’ll love her just as God created her!

The walk seemed endless. Even though we were going as quickly as my body would allow me to go, it was as though we were moving in slow motion to get to the room where our daughter was in labor. When we finally made it to the door, we heard the moans of Leisa. We knew she was experiencing another contraction. We opened the door very gently so as not to disturb our son-in-law James, who was coaching his much beloved wife. Seeing our baby in so much pain was difficult for me and Christopher to witness. We knew it was part of the process of birthing new life, but still it was not easy for us as a mother and father to watch our baby in so much pain.

As we entered the room, we were met by James and his parents, Henry and June, who were already assembled in the room keeping Leisa company. James was cheering Leisa on, telling her to breathe and relax through the contraction. Tears of joy flooded our souls. After months of waiting, now the day was here. We would meet our baby girl on this very day. Each of us watched intently as the machine kept track of each contraction. As they came more frequently, we held each other’s hands, knowing it would be any moment now. Our baby would be here!

June, Henry, Christopher, James, Leisa, and I were just making nervous small talk in between the contractions, anxiously awaiting to be parents and grandparents. Each of us decided months before what this precious baby would call us; Henry and June wanted to be called DeeDee and Papa, and Christopher and I wanted the German names Oma and Opa. We laughed and said, This precious angel can call us whatever she wants to. We really don’t care.

It was midafternoon when the door to the room swung open. A big smile came across my face and the faces of everyone assembled in the room at the sight of the midwife. Her face had so much joy as she said, Are you ready to have your baby? Excitement and immeasurable joy filled the air. None of us could not contain ourselves. We would be holding our baby girl soon! Our hearts skipped a beat or two or three as the tension rose in the air for each of us. Christopher and I were dancing at the thought of, We are going to be Opa and Oma! It was something we had been looking forward to since Leisa and James’s wedding a few years prior.

Christopher, Henry, and June left the room. I, the midwife, a nurse, and of course our Leisa and James were the only ones remaining in the room. I paced across the room, trying to contain myself and trying to help Leisa too, but I had to pull myself together a couple of times. Leisa had told me when she found out she was pregnant, Mom, I am not having this baby without you in the room. I can honestly say I wasn’t a whole lot of help. I was so proud of James. He coached Leisa perfectly, just as he had been trained to do. For the first time I saw what a husband experiences with his wife in labor. Oh, I know I had this precious baby who was now having her own baby, but I was in my own little world when I was in labor and had not observed what Christopher went through during the birth of our first and only biological child. It was truly a heart-opening experience and illuminating thought process for me that day.

James and I were focused on Leisa and giving her encouragement during the birthing process, when all of sudden a loud, sweet, precious cry turned the room’s atmosphere from tension to overwhelming joy! Tears flowed down each of our faces as we looked down at such a perfect miracle, so tiny, weighing in at six pounds two ounces and measuring twenty inches long.

As I looked very intently into her beautiful eyes for the very first time, I knew it was a miracle that I had lived long enough to be able to see the birth of a grandchild. It was a sight I’d thought perhaps I would never see. At times neither did Christopher, Leisa, Kitty, Tommy (our other son-in-law), or the many doctors and nurses and other medical personnel who had begun taking care of me on that December day and continued to do so throughout the many years that have passed since that horrible, nightmarish day. The struggle for me to get to the point of seeing our baby girl born was much greater than we could have ever imagined.

Sometimes life delivers you a difficult blow that changes your life forever. Sometimes such difficulties keep coming for many, many years; they knock you down to your knees time after time, leaving you wounded and bruised, feeling defeated and crushed. Christopher and I have learned over the years that it is how a person deals with the difficult blows that makes and shapes that person. We have seen people handle tragedies in the usual ways: either they will run from God, blaming him for everything, and spend the rest of their lives in misery, or they will run straight into God’s loving arms, not understanding why the tragedy happened, but not blaming him for it either. Those who run toward God are the ones who know God loves and cares for his children through all the human situations this world of evil has to offer. We have come to understand that when God’s children hurt, God also hurts. God does not bring harm to his children, but when his beloved children experience evil and suffer on account of human sin, God doesn’t abandon them. God walks side by side, hand in hand, with his children when they suffer the conditions of human life. Faith has brought us to the understanding that God is a good God. He is not a God who brings harm upon or punishes those he loves. God sent his Son Jesus to suffer for our sins. This proves that God detests suffering and that he is not the author of human pain. Original sin, and all the human sin since, has ushered in the human condition of suffering and pain. Before the Fall (Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden of Eden described in the book of Genesis in the Old Testament), humans had no concept of pain or suffering. God made us in his perfect image. Sin distorted the perfection that God created in us. Sin also distorted the relationship between humanity and God. Jesus came to restore or regenerate a more perfect relationship. Sin can be forgiven. Unfortunately, the human condition changed because of sin, and humanity has experienced pain and suffering since. We have learned that blaming God for the human condition is a failure to understand true love, the loved shared in the incarnate Christ.

Those with shallow or damaged faith in God are not bad people. Perhaps they’ve forgotten what he did for humanity on the cross with the sacrifice of his Son Jesus and the fact that we live in a sin-filled, imperfect world where terrible things happen to good people. It is a simplistic way of thinking, we know, but having been in ministry for many years, we have concluded that it is the only way for us. We as humans tend to complicate things when they are really simple, if only you will stop and think about them as a cause-and-effect situation, meaning, If I do this in reaction to an event, then these are the things that could happen. Praying and going to God makes things easier for us. Asking him what he wants us to do with this thing that has