[Paula O]

Thx for sharing your heart and thoughts, Jackie. I am sorry about your losses of these dear ones. That's hard. I've been thinking about suffering too. I'm retired now from being an RN but I sure have witnessed plenty of physical anquish and suffering as I was caring for sick and dying patients and I see lots of suffering people when I go to the cancer center. It's heart wrenching sometimes.

You mentioned Job--quite an man who went through more than most people ever will. Along with one terrible trial after another all in a row, poor guy had unsupportive friends and a wife who told him to "Curse God and die" in the midst of his suffering. I have often thought of his response to what he went through, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." "Wow" is all I gotta say.

The lives of Joseph and Paul and how they handled their troubles have impacted me as well, especially since cancer. I'm no expert and sure don't understand God's purposes for allowing pain and suffering and terrible, awful things but I see so many places in the Bible as well as life itself which display His loving, wise character and I know He makes no mistakes. He has a purpose for what He allows.

It says in Scripture that God works EVERYTHING together--even the bad stuff--for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. He always has the last word in everything (yet we might not hear/see it in this life) which can be confusing. I know according to the Bible He has much higher purposes for the trials and difficulties than what meets our very limited perspective and eyesight. I'm hanging tight on what God says about hardship and suffering in the Bible and all His promises. I love that He can bring beauty from even ashes and joy from mourning and a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness (Is 61:3). He sure has done that for me regarding breast cancer.

You mentioned the reality that life is not fair. We always want everything to be fair, me too. It hits me that life is not fair and God is not fair and that's the way it is and it's OK. Some things seem so horrible, so terribly unfair and awful (like the Holocost for example) that it makes us mad or want to cry or SOMETHING. Sometimes God gets blamed for things people do. None of us are robots and we all have a free will. Some people's bad choices effect innocent lives. Some things in life seem downright senseless and unfair like drunk drivers hitting kids playing in their own yards, like rape and incest, like out of control cancer taking over and snuffing out somebody's life. Why o why do these things happen, I don't know. God doesn't 'cause' cancer but he does allow it. In Heaven I am going to get a new body that will be cancer-free but sickness is just a fact of life here on earth and I'm just passing through this temporary hardship in life a short time with my real home, my eternal home ahead of me. When I struggle when unfair things happen like cancer, it helps me to also look at different angles of the picture. We have such a limited view, like the underside of a tapestry--full of snarls and knots but God above is weaving a beautiful tapestry. It's also "not fair" that some people are born in poverty and are starving today while others of us, me included, are on a diet to get rid of excess poundage. I have more than enough food, others have nothing. It's not fair that innocent babies are killed in utero and some are born infected with HIV because of their mother's choices. Is it fair that some have the blessing of healthy children and others have none or have children dealing with cancer? Nope. Not fair either. It's not fair that in America we have so much we take for granted like our freedom and there are others who have very little and are living in fear, tyranny, and oppression. Why them and not us and visa versa? Nobody gets to pick their place of birth.

Have your read Joni Erickson Tada's books on pain and suffering? She is a quadraplegic in chronic severe pain and has breast cancer on top of it. I am in awe of her example of how she handles it all in God's strength.

Paula