Download - The Perfect Wisdom Web

Be Not Afraid sufferingWriter Elisabeth Elliott points out that thoughwe accept these things, at least on a certain level, aspart of life, we find them harder to accept when they“strike down a child, an ‘innocent’ adult, or someoneelse whose victimhood offends our notions of fairness.And so we rationalize and theologize and try to comeup with answers.” In my view, this is often a waste oftime. Certainly it can be fruitful to explore the meaningof suffering, to grapple with the “big” questions, andto let them deepen us. At the same time, Elliott goeson, there is a price to be paid “every time we satisfyour need to rationalize such things as suffering. Oncewe think we have unlocked a mystery, we tend to closethe books to further study. Unsolved, the problemcaptivated us with the challenge of discovery; shelved,it loses relevance and meaning.”Referring to the destruction of New York’s TwinTowers on September 11, 2001, author BarbaraKingsolver says:There are so many answers, and none: It is desperatelypainful to see people die without having done anythingto deserve it, and yet this is how lives end nearly always.We get old or we don’t, we get cancer, we starve, we arebattered, we get on a plane thinking we’re going homebut never make it. There are blessings and wonders and110