The Problem of Evil

~Part of this is from a journal I wrote for theology, part is written now.~

These past few days I have really been struggling with something we have not even begun to discuss, the problem of evil.  These days I have just been really bombarded with wondering how a good God can allow suffering and evil in the world.  This is something that sort of blows my mind, and it is not necessarily something that makes me doubt my faith or the existence of God, but it ultimately ends up with me wondering about God’s purpose and why evil seems to flourish while good suffers.  Maybe something of the things I see as good are actually bad and that means that justice is being served, or maybe my ideas of justice and the right course of action for God are really off the mark, which is more likely the answer, but I just don’t have a good answer.  In years past I have often been asked by non-believers how my God could allow for my believer friends to die at young ages, and I have never had an answer, nor do I now, nor do I think I ever will have an answer.  It just seems to me that it is a paradox, that the ultimate good being would allow something to be tainted with evil, in my mind I sometimes think God should just wipe out evil and start over, but then that would go against God being love, so I really don’t understand.

I do know that this problem is much more real when it is someone you know that is suffering and not someone on the other side of the world.  Though we can sympathize with those we don’t know, family is family and we feel our family’s pain.  I’m just not sure of any of the explanations I have read about this subject.  I think this might be one of those things that I really have to be content with not knowing God’s plans and purposes and just allow him to work and hopefully one day I will understand.

I wrote this journal after having a discussion with my mother but the state of health of my grandfather.  It is a trying situation for my family, and I again find myself wondering about how God could allow evil.  And now I sit at home while my parents are with him at his home after a phone call from my grandmother, trying to figure out why he is so sick again.  I just really do not know at this point, I don’t know whats going on, and I just don’t understand why this is happening to a man who has struggled enough with faith as it is, and I am just hoping that now it does not seem to him that God does not love him and want a close relationship with him.

This whole evil thing is something I just do not get, and I really just want an answer.