A case of faith
I was listening to a "This American Life" podcast this morning and they had a story about a women who had lost her faith in God following the death of her good friend to colon cancer. Raised Catholic, she had struggled to look for a reason for why her friend had to die. She wondered why God would have let her friend, who was a good loving person, died while she was still alive. Many devoted christians had offered explanations and reason and one in particular that caught her attention. For the show she taped several conversation she had with this stranger about faith, God, and alot of the things she struggles. It was painful to listen to. She wanted an answer to why bad things happen to good people in light of a loving, caring God only to get apologetic answers on why her logic was faulty and her reasoning was bad. She confessed later that she really did want to believe, but her questions and doubts have not been answered or relieved. It broke my heart and made me cringe at the same time.
I think too many times good-meaning Christians miss the point in situations like theses. She's not a person raising a hypothetical questions, this means something to her. She's not looking for logical arguments, but someone who can reconcile her doubts with her desire to believe. I wanted to call her and tell her, bad things always happen to good people about as often as good things happen to bad people and vice versa. That God never promises that nothing bad will happen to people who trust in him, that he understands that pain and that confusion, that he is there for us in those dark times. I wanted to tell her that there are several instances in the Bible where people have to face many of these trying situations only to find that God is always present and there for us. The good side is that her conversations with this Christian stranger have got her thinking about God again. The bad side is that I worry that the explanations she was given presents this cold, logical, rational god that does what he does without really caring about us. The ironic part is, the most comfort she got about God was an explanation given to her from an atheist who understood what she wanted to hear about.
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