Some of my most enjoyable conversations over the past two-plus decades have centered on the question, “How can you believe in a God who allows bad things to happen to good people?” In fact, some of my favorite convos have been with those who disagree with me over this question—not because I’m super smart or persuasive, but because I’ve lived at the crossroads of suffering and faith for so long, I welcome the chance to talk about the elephant in the room (and the pain behind the question).

Instead of offering a tidy, simplistic answer to this complicated query, I’m quick to admit that I live in a lot of mystery; there’s so much that I don’t understand. But what I do know is the only thing I need to know: the God who allows suffering in our lives is the God who became like us so He could suffer with and for us. He isn’t distant or indifferent to our pain. On the contrary, He experienced our pain in all its fulness so that one day He can destroy it forever.

In fact, smack dab in the middle of a terminal diagnosis, I’ve become increasingly convinced that God hates to see His children suffer. “He does not willingly afflict the sons of men” (Lam. 3:33) but is “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jonah 4:2).

A gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster…

Ironically, those words were one man’s bitter complaint against God. The Israelite prophet Jonah resented God for forgiving the worst people on the planet (and the Israelites’ fiercest enemy), the Assyrians of Nineveh. God’s mercy was disturbing to Jonah, offensive to the point that he told God he wanted to die. “I knew you were like this! I knew you would do this!” he bellyached. To the self-righteous man, God’s kindness felt like terrible injustice.

Yet God was not being unjust. In forgiving the Assyrians, He wasn’t making light of their wickedness, nor was He overlooking the atrocities they’d committed against His people. Instead, He looked to the day when He would bear the Assyrians’ atrocities in His own body so that justice could be fully served—and really bad people could experience His extravagant goodness. (And religious hypocrites like Jonah could also be forgiven and experience His goodness.)

I tread gently here, because I don’t want to be reductionistic or trivialize any wrong or suffering. This topic is too much for this limited space and my simple brain. It deserves kind, wise, and safe dialogues; compassionate and listening ears; and the willingness to sit with each other in the grief.

And I haven’t even touched on the hardest stuff: What about children who are sexually abused? Human trafficking? Genocide? Slavery? We could go on and on, right? This is complex and touches on the tenderest places of our hearts…

Since I’m in over my head, let me make this less global and more personal:

I’m back on chemo again.

Again.

It’s a new drug as I stopped tolerating the old one. I’m on a drastically reduced dose and it’s still wreaking havoc on my body. There are no words for the weariness and the misery and the midnight wrestling—

I can’t do this anymore. But I can’t not do this…
My body can’t handle this anymore. But my body can’t handle the alternative either…

And this long journey would harden my heart if it weren’t for this: The God who continues to entrust this suffering to me is the God who…

was despised and rejected by men,
a man of suffering who knew what sickness was…
He himself bore our sicknesses,
and he carried our pains…
he was pierced because of our rebellion,
crushed because of our iniquities;
punishment for our peace was on him,
and we are healed by his wounds. (Isaiah 53:4-5)

Jesus bore in his body not only my sin but also the effects of living in a world under the curse of sin—including sickness and disease, loss and grief. And because He already carried this cancer—and ultimately defeated it when He busted out of that grave—I can face it with the rock-solid hope that He will heal me, fully and forever.

And because He was the Man of Sorrows who endured immeasurable grief, He can comfort and carry my husband and son—and He’ll carry us all till He welcomes us into that “destiny that reaches beyond this world to a kaleidoscope of wonders, enrichments, and delights” (1).

As Amy Carmichael said,

Sorrow is one of the things that are lent, not given. … Joy is given; sorrow is lent. … It is lent to us for just a little while that we may use it for eternal purposes. Then it will be taken away and everlasting joy will be our Father’s gift to us, and the Lord God will wipe away all tears from off all faces (Isa. 25:8). (2)

This is the God I’ve learned to trust when I don’t understand the terrible things of this life. He’s experienced what I have, what my loved ones have, what every sufferer has—and He has everything we need to face it all with peace and purpose, joy and hope. He doesn’t spare us the pain, but He joins us in it, until that day when He makes all things new.

Knowing this, I can take the question, “Why does God allow good things to happen to bad people?” and turn it on its head, humbly asking instead, “Why would God love bad people (like me) so much, He’d suffer and sacrifice Himself to give them every good thing—forever and ever?”

Jonah faulted God for being full of mercy and love. While he wanted to be on the receiving end of that kindness (see Jonah 2:2-7), he wanted to ban “the bad guys” from it. But here’s the thing about God’s love: it’s always shockingly extravagant. It defies our ideas of what’s just and fair. It sets its affections on the most unlikely people. It transforms the worst things that happen to us into countless gifts that can never be taken from us.

So, I can face another round of chemo this afternoon and all the side effects that follow. Even as my body takes another beating, I can laugh and enjoy my husband and son. I can live fully, looking for God’s many mercies today and laboring at the good works He’s given me to do—not because I’m strong, not because the suffering gets any easier—but because I’m loved by the One whose love is better than life itself (Psalm 63:3), the One who’s giving me more days so I can share that love with others….

Worth it. Oh is it ever worth it.

(1) J.I. Packer, Weakness is the Way, 92-93.

(2) Amy Carmichael, Edges of His Ways, p.230.