Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared ‘neath the stars above
For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known that you’d ever say goodbye

 And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance, I could have missed the pain
But I’d have had to miss the dance

 Holding you I held everything
For a moment wasn’t I a king
But if I’d only known how the king would fall
Hey who’s to say you know I might have changed it all.

And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I’d have had to miss the dance

Garth Brooks, The Dance

I’ve not written much on the problem of evil, it’s something I and my wife understand, our lives have been touched by pains, disappoints, loss, as have we all. The problem of course is I’m a student of the New Testament, a theologian, and a thinker, as an apologist writing about facts and presenting arguments is something I understand, but explaining or addressing feelings, well the dozens of times I’ve tried to start an article, it never went well.

October is infant and pregnancy loss awareness month (as apparently is April), and I’m a husband of a wife who has suffered from at least two lost pregnancies, and the father of at least two children that did not arrive into this world. We experienced the joy of expectation and found those hopes dashed as the ultrasounds took place. There are a number of women suffering from infertility, sometimes suffering without speaking, sometimes, like my wife, not wanting to speak, those empty arms being a bitter pill and sometimes very little is needed to remind someone of that aching heart. The hardest thing my wife has ever endured was losing her babies, the hardest thing I have ever endured was crying with her, holding her while methotrexate was used to save her life because of an ectopic pregnancy and trying to take care of her while I too mourned my lost little ones. This was after a pastorate had turned dreams to dust, and I cried out that naracisstic prayer we all pray, “why me, Lord,” or worse, in the recesses of my mind to cry out “it’s not fair.”

The theological answer is clear, of course, which is why the problem of evil is such a modern phenomenon developed in a culture that was nominally Christian enough that they had an expectation of God, but no actual understanding of God’s justice. Modern’s reject God because they believe He must be some cosmic Santa Claus, failing to realize that He is a just judge. The Christian answer is ultimately one of justice and freewill, far from the millennials starry-eyed belief that justice is an attempt to build Utopia, a Christian view of justice must always reconcile with the fact that we are a fallen race who no longer deserves the beauties of this world. Nor can we object to God’s allowing the fall because we ourselves have joined into sin willingly, it is no good to just blame Adam when our depraved wills have chosen to follow in his footsteps. Whatever else we might say of the problem of evil, we must begin from the standpoint that the atheist cannot make his case until he can prove man deserves better; I personally think this case cannot be made unless we choose to be ignorant of human history.

Of course, for the woman who has lost a child, or is struggling with infertility, this is a cold comfort, there is really a distinction between the problem of evil and the problem of suffering, the one asking why bad things happen, the latter asking why bad things happen to me. But then again, perhaps they are not so separate after all; we perceive them to be different because of the heaviness of our tears. To understand suffering, we ultimately need to understand that God is both just and loving, and if we are redeemed there is an “already-not yet” dynamic to our lives under the sun. We are already heirs of God, but we have not yet come into the fullness of our inheritance. We are already redeemed from sin, and yet the old man of sin still lives within us. We are positionally righteous before God through Christ’s sacrifice of His own body; Jesus being the Sacrifice for sin and the Priest offering that Sacrifice, but my life is still imperfect in it’s obedience to Him. We are freed from the cares of this life for the next, and yet we still suffer greatly. We are never promised that suffering will end in this life.

The key to our suffering, however, is that, as believers, the meaning of suffering changes, it is neither pointless nor eternal (no matter how it feels). For the lost, the suffering is a warning of what will come if they continue down a path that rejects the God who made them, but for the believer, it’s different. Our suffering, even in loss has a purpose. I can find solace, for example, in the fact that I believe my children have been spared all the pains of this life—and I am persuaded the pains of this life far outweigh the pleasures, the pleasures being reminders of lost Eden.  But I also have found that He which has begun a good work in me is completing that work. My wife and I are closer through our trials than we would have been without them. I have been forced to depend on Him in ways I never could have imagined; at times, just to get through the day. In college, I tried to be Spock, though I was passionate about the faith, I could only experience many parts of the Bible from the analytical processes of my mind, that now seems both foreign, vain and quite frankly misses much of the point. The saccharine substitutes so freely used by our society are shown to be a pale imitation of the joys in Him; we can no longer be satisfied with distractions and diversions. If the suffering brings us down, it also lifts us up, it reminds us that this life is temporary, but that there is something eternal, and life is more than the accumulation of things and accolades. It sharpens my desire to write and present an offering to Him. In short, if the suffering of the lost is hopeless, the suffering of the believer produces fruit, and we have the hope of looking to a day when that suffering will end. Garth Brooks is wrong, our lives are never left to chance, for the believer, God will always take our straw, and make it into something of value, if we will trust Him.

I know this isn’t the help many want, I understand the desire to scream out about the unfairness of it all. I’ve been there. But I also have learned that screaming at God for causing our pain is to miss the very same God who is the only one that can bring meaning to our pain. To forget Him in trials is to give up the strength that brings us through that suffering. If we are stuck for the moment in the fallen world, with its reminders of our lost innocence, we know also that He is suffering with us, and has already suffered for us. Joy will come, or at least peace, for me it was from a song by the Greenes.

You aren’t alone, we are in it with you, And if it is hope, never give up on our God, Mandy’s last pregnancy happened after she gave up, and her arms are no longer empty, and my heart is now full, though I often ask God to make sure my babies with Him are getting hugs. Joy can come in the morning.