Where is God in Suffering?

I’m confused about the book I am reading right now; a faith-themed book, I thought I could foresee its conclusion, but now I am not so sure.  The book is written by a brain surgeon.  Early on, he takes as a patient a young healthy man, a Christian strong in faith, a man with a strong wife and beautiful kids --- and the MRI shows he has brain cancer.  Even before further testing, the surgeon knows what type of cancer this is --- “this is the end of you.”  Rapidly spreading, the cancer has a 0% survival rate; people rarely live beyond a few months, but he hides this fact from the family.  “I’m boing to beat this,” the young man says, smiling; “We’ll work out a plan of action, and I’ll be praying for you,” the surgeon responds.  And each time the young man returns, optimistic, the MRI shows the rapid spread of the cancer.  And the surgeon prays, yet always knowing “this is the end of you.”

The particular type of cancer written about progresses in various ways, and the surgeon writes of other patients he sees.  Some quickly die, one way of another.  One, who is being operated on to capture a small sample of the brain for biopsy, dies on the table.  Some of the patients quickly give up, while some go to huge extremes --- and expense --- but all end up with the same result.  Then the surgeon operates on a young man who was injured in an auto accident --- an addict who is chained to his bed by the police.  In operating on the young man’s skull fracture, the surgeon notices a tiny, but familiar, oddity on the surface of the brain, and tests it.  It is the horrible form of cancer, as he suspected, and so the surgeon cuts out a large piece of the brain.  And in coming weeks, the young man has all sorts of complications, but to the surprise of the surgeon the cancer does not return.  And as the book progresses, the young addict, who wishes he were dead, lives --- and the strong, faith-filled man (for whom, in reading the book, I expected a miracle cure), dies.

And the surgeon prays, and becomes despondent.  All those he prays for die, as he knows they will.  “So why am I praying for them,” he wonders.

I expect that at some point in the story the surgeon will come to some realization that everyone dies, and yet we pray for each other.  I expect that he’ll com to some sort of realization like I wrote in my recent posting called “Retirement Planning,” but I am far from sure of the outcome of this book.  I expected a miracle, a happy ending, but now I don’t know.  I think the surgeon is slowly drifting toward a realization, in faith, that even in the horrible suffering in this world, which he must participate in, there is a reason.

The Bible Study guys were talking about 1John5.  It says “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.”  The conversation about how to put this truth into our hearts and make it a key focus of our life rambled all over the place.  It was a typical Friday morning.  My mind wandered, and then I glanced at the headline in today’s Wall Street Journal, which lay on the table before me.  “Virus Outbreak is Declared a Global-Health Emergency.”  The article stated that the number of know cases had again doubled overnight, to 6,000, with a death rate of over 2%.  And as I sat there, I scratched numbers on the paper.  Doubling each day, there will be 384,000 cases by next week, 100 million by the following week, and the entire world would be infected within 3 weeks --- with 150 million dead.  I looked at those numbers, as the Bible Study guys continued to discuss how hard it is to find time to worry about spiritual matters.  And at a point, I could not help but speak up.

Oh, I guess I rambled about priorities, understanding God’s will and our eternal destiny, and so forth, but then I brought up the coronavirus facts.  “Scientists have difficulty understanding God,” I said, “because they deal in facts: who, what, where, when and how.  And God isn’t in any of those things.”  And I briefly mentioned the Christian brain surgeon I was reading about.  “To live our earthly life, a key purpose for which we are here, requires those facts and answers to those questions.  But science cannot answer “why” those facts occur.  That is where our faith, our spiritual life, makes some sense of this world, this suffering.  And one of the guys looked up the Spanish Flu, which started at the end of World War I in 1918, and was spread by returning soldiers throughout the world.  About 500 million were infected, and 75 million died.  They survived a horrible war, for a while.

And our Bible Study’s closing prayer this morning was much different than our opening prayer.

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I mentioned, in a posting a month ago (Love: Craved vs Offered), how God changed my plans one night.  I couldn’t do what I wanted to do, so I went to the chapel.  And there --- in an unusual series of coincidences (which I don’t believe in) --- I met a number of people.  I thought at the time that the reason I was directed to that chapel was because I was meant to re-connect with these people (but I haven’t seen them since).  And at the time, I thought lightly of the one who told me he had run into a priest who said God spoke to him, telling him to prepare for a 3-month disaster.

My Jesus, I trust in You.