My son has had severe epilepsy since he was born.
For 15 years, he'd have
10 to 20 epileptic seizures every day, and, uh,
our whole life was basically revolved around his disability,
and yet I would pray for other friends who had sick children,
and it seemed like their kids got better,
um, but my son didn't.
The one moment that redefined this question for me
was probably in 2004 with the tsunami
that happened in Asia,
and just the sheer devastation
of a natural disaster just brought me to my knees
and where I was at the television saying,
"God, seriously, why?"
The question, "How can God allow
these bad things to happen?" I think is a,
it's a reality. It's a hard, hard question,
in fact maybe the hardest question.
God allows humankind to make their own choices, and
ultimately they can lead to some magnificent things.
I mean, you have a look at the extraordinary things—
extraordinary things that human beings have been able
to accomplish, uh, in the freedom and autonomy
that God has given us.
But the downside or the dark side of this autonomy
or this freedom is that we can just create
the most vile and contemptible
and cruel and vicious outcomes of being human.
A lot of what we see in the world— in my opinion,
of what I've experienced— is, you know, you have
generations of men, you know, women,
father, mother, children.
When they make the choice not to love—
love God, love each other— you play that out, and
um, there, there's a lot of pain that comes with that.
The suffering that comes from nature, or, or earthquakes,
or hurricanes, or things like that,
I, I find harder to explain,
and, uh, I guess you got to live with the mystery of it. Um...
I think the Christian answer's the best one,
but when you go out East into the Eastern religions,
it doesn't make any sense of suffering at all.
Uh, it's kind of like, "Suck it up." It doesn't make—
it doesn't attempt to try and make sense of it or
derive meaning.
So the Buddhist answer, for instance—
and I have great respect for Buddhism—
the Buddhist answer says, "it's not real." Um...
suffering has no reality.
Well, I, you know, I, I think you tell that
to a suffering person, and I don't think
it makes sense to them.
The Christian answer actually doesn't answer everything, um,
particularly when you're suffering, um,
but it is the best one around, uh, without a doubt.
About five years ago, I was pregnant, and
I heard the words that no mother ever wants to hear:
"Your child is not going to live." Um...
On April 7, 2008, I delivered a
little girl who was alive when she was born.
Her name was Audrey Caroline,
and she lived for 2 1/2 hours.
We loved her a lifetime's worth that
short amount of time.
Watched her get her first bath and
little haircut.
But later that night when everyone was gone,
and it was just my husband and I alone with her,
as time went on, we knew that we were going to have to
call a nurse to come in and take her. Um...
I had to hand my daughter to someone
and watch her be taken away from me,
knowing that I wouldn't see her again this side of Heaven.
And as I lay in that hospital bed,
and everything in me wanted to just bang on all the buttons
and tell them to bring her back,
I really called out to God in a way I never had before,
and I just said, "I can't do this, and
I need you to just be here right now. I just need you to hold me."
He did. He did.
I will tell you that, in that moment, I saw, um,
a side of God that I've never experienced
and I've never forgotten since then.
Just His faithfulness to one girl
in a hospital room who was devastated.
And I just really felt that He was there.
Sorry.
When I talk to people about the stuff
they've gone through, I— to be honest, the
for me, the best answer and the, the most appropriate response
is— as a Christian, as a believer— is to cry too.
To hold the hand and to weep too,
and then to introduce them to someone
who helps pull you out of a pit,
and not in some weird,
messed up, quick-fix kind of a way.
I get really annoyed
when we Christians propose it as an answer
as, like, the quick, in a box, fix that changes everything. Um...
But there's a, there's a phrase, I—
it's in one of the books of the Bible— which talks about— I...
and it's this, it says, "I know my Redeemer lives."
And, um, and that part of the Bible has always won me,
because it talks about this person who buys back
all that's been lost, um, through your own helplessness, um,
through violence, through your own foolishness.
And, um, that's who I met:
someone who, who helped me over, over years
and blood, sweat, and tears, um,
bring back that— what was lost.
We have seen God use our son's sickness, um,
in amazing ways, and people have found faith
in Jesus through his life.
And I guess maybe God does, uh, use some people
and their disabilities and their struggles
to help other people to find God.
You know, I do think, like, if there really is a Heaven
and if what is said about Heaven
from the words of Jesus is true
in that there— my son will never be sick again
and someday I'll see him as this perfect
body in this perfect form— and then Ryan looks at his life,
and we all see the amount of people that have been influenced by his life,
am I gonna argue with what God did?
Probably not, I'll probably be thankful that
he allowed our family, um,
I guess, to, to struggle through, um,
and yet why does he just help other people?
I don't know, but I'm glad he does. I'm glad he just helps.
I'm glad that, no matter what we see,
apparently God has some plan for that.
We see that God actually comes to the planet,
he actually lives among us so that he understands
our suffering, our hurt, our pain.
He understands it all.
Then Jesus dies on the cross,
and in the mystery of faith, all the junk of the world,
all the junk that's in our hearts,
all the junk that's in our relationships,
all of that junk dies with him.
So in the Christian world view,
God doesn't leave our world in
the state that it is
but actually is seeking to heal it and bring us back.
We feel as though we're in this battle,
and, um, really what we need
in the midst of that battle
is a hero to step in for us.
The hero obviously is, is God.
I believe
that God considers those who struggle with Him
to be heroes also.
In fact, I, I would go so far as to say that
those of His children who struggle against
all of these terrible things that we see in the world, um
are cheered on by
the population of Heaven. And, um,
if they should die in their struggle,
I believe they get a hero's welcome
when they meet Him.