How I wished I've got a bigger brain!

How do I vouch for God in the face of overwhelming evidence of suffering?

I just got off the phone with a friend who is currently in a very difficult period in her life. The problems which she mentioned silenced me. More than anything else, my heart ached for her just from listening to her sobbing and whatever is left of her sweet and intelligible voice. My feelings of ineptitude are magnified because she revealed her secrets to me after I had told her of my rekindled love for God.

By telling her about my experience with how I came back to Christ, I had unconsciously included in the experience reasons why I came to know God. For example, I believe in God because what is said in the Bible logically explains my past errors. God is able to explain why I suffered. I suffered because we did not obey God's commandment of loving one another etc.

I just realised that my entire faith is built on the premise of my suffering first and foremost, and I use that to describe God. I describe God in light of what He 'is not' rather than what He 'is'. God is not hate. God is not loneliness. God is not pain. They are how I came to see God. I did not see God in positive terms. My acceptance of God is not based on how I saw two people love one another; it was rather how I saw two people hate one another.

I had unconsciously made suffering as the "pre-condition" for God. On revealing to me the extent of her suffering, she had inadvertantly trivialised my own justifications for God. She is simply telling me that there cannot be a God because He only solves minor problems but He doesn't solve big problems like hers. She looks down on my spiritual inexperience as well because she was born into a Catholic family and baptized as one. How do I respond to that? I feel so guilty for not having a bigger brain.

I find myself swimming inside a big giant pudding. I'm trying to grasp the complexities of her problems; I'm trying to understand my own reasons for God; and I'm frustrated because I cannot speed up time to improve my knowledge of God. If you realised how I have to work through the three complex thoughts, you would know that even blogging this down has been difficult. But I want to share this with you guys because I feel it's important that we face difficult questions and search for their answers together.

To quote my friend "If there is a God, and He loves, how could He standby and watch my family and I suffer like this?"

I'll reveal more during cell this week.

Kitt