God is Good?

I flip through photographs in our local newspaper of the food crisis in East Africa and I feel devastated and powerless.  In my end of the globe, my paper can be shut, my television turned off, my tummy full, my indulgences mostly satisfied. I want my daughter to understand how good we really do have it.  It’s a fine balance between celebrating the wonders of childhood, yet acknowledging the realities of what is happening on our planet.

We walk upstairs to her playroom in front of the map of the world.  Where is Canada Olivia? She points.  The United States? She taps.  Africa? I guide her finger across the Atlantic to the vast stretch of land that overshadows the size of our own.  We hone in on Somalia, on Ethiopia, on Sudan.  Three countries she’s heard of, but has not set foot on. Yet.

Why don’t they have food Mommy?  Little questions with very big answers.  We look at some pictures of the people, but most are too tragic for her little eyes so we shut the computer. 

Let’s send the money in our piggy banks Mommy.  We agree on the idea and walk past our filled refrigerator to pull out our craft box.  Above is the picture of the piggy bank we made to fill for those starving in Africa. We’ve kept it in the kitchen and are reminded as we bow our heads before dinner to say grace. “Thank you for this food, Lord.” My daughter says it every night before supper as the bedtime prayer is “too tricky” and left for mom.

In teaching her about our world, I hope she grasps the wonder and beauty all around her, but is ever mindful of the gaping wounds and needs just the same.  And I know she’ll have to make her own way through understanding why bad things still happen.  Why innocent people are hurt.  Why people die too young.  Why there is injustice when we sing about God’s sovereignty and power.  Little questions with very big answers.  Ones we are never fully satisfied with. Seemingly contrived responses which don’t soothe our aching hearts.  Our aching hearts which really are asking, how a heavenly father can sit back and watch his children’s demise.

I don’t have the answers.  I can offer scripture verses and arguments which may or may not, but are unlikely too, heal your broken heart.  God’s ways are not our ways. One day in heaven, we will understand. Justice may not be served on this end of heaven, but eternally one day it will pass.  But, it doesn’t cover the wound, does it?

Because, all we want right now is to be embraced in a real way.  To run home to comforting arms who will somehow make it all better and take the pain away.  Someone who will fix it.  Someone who will wipe our tears.  Someone who will be there, loving us, our neighbour, our children, and the children in Africa in a bigger, more beautiful way, than our small selves can. Someone who has got the whole world in his hands.

Today, I can’t give my daughter all the answers to appease her 4 year old brain.  I don’t have all the answers for my 33 year old one.  But, the character and nature of the loving father that we bow our heads to and fall on our knees for, on a daily basis speaks to our hearts.  He weeps in our pain and heartache.  He holds us and carries us when we are broken and cannot get up.  He is there as comforter and healer of a broken world with hungry people.  He speaks to our hearts and works in us to be the hands and feet of Christ on this planet.  He covers the gaps and the holes. He cares deeply and intimately about your personal pain and the pain of the world. 

If we spend our time questioning if God is good, I think we miss the point.  If we can allow him to meet us in our darkest places, and be open to his embrace, we will experience his goodness.  Cancer, poverty, brokenness and all. Sometimes it is fixed, sometimes it is not for reasons we don't understand.  But always, always, God is good.

Then Jesus wept. John 11:35