question regarding Gods plans for ppl!????all are welcome to try and decipher this ,if you can that is???
many many Christians say God has a plan and knows stuff in advance! my question is as follows - When a child gets cancer and has to undergo soooo much pain and suffering to fight it, is that part of the divine plan of God or did that child do something so terrible that he/she deserves to suffer? when a child gets raped and murdered God knows this in advance right? so was it a planned rape and killing and part of the divine Plan of the holy ghost? did that child do something to be tested in such extreme horror!
Christians try to be respectful as today marks the one year anniversary of the THREE CANCERS that spread through my child's body ! so I am speaking as a person with experience!
2008-03-21T16:20:15Z
BTW he is still fighting for his life as I sit helpless and watch him suffer!
Anonymous2008-03-21T16:23:34Z
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This, along with Noah's ark, are undoubtedly the two most embarrassing subjects that Christians must face.
How can we mere humans have more compassion for our own children than the supposed being that created us, has for us? What sort of twisted parents would ever DESIGN IN ADVANCE a lifetime of suffering and misery, (not to mention eternal damnation) for their children, when its obvious to anyone with a brain that lessons taught rationally through compassion and understanding are always more effective?
Too bad their doctrine is sacrosanct, or they could have at least modified it to eliminate the most repulsive and absurd aspects.
So12G. We have to revisit our sunday school understanding of God. We have delvolped this God that is not realistic. God created in plentitude. In the creation story in genesis it says the seas were teeming with all kinds of fishes. same goes for poeple and good and evil. And God can work in all the good and the evil in the world. I would offer that God does not know what will happen in advance and if God could, chooses not to. this does not add up with what we learn in SS but it is more realistic.
Several years ago I did a funeral for a man that held his two year old hostage and eventually killed the child and himself. those were very hard funerals to do. The only thing I could tell those gathered for the service was rather than ask why, ask what. What do we do now. What can we do for mental health, how can we work in the communty to deminish domestic violence.
In your case, you do not say if your child died or not. But I often use John Walsh as an example. His son was killed and decapitated by a serial killer. John could have blamed God but instead he used his anger and grief to start the America's Most Wanted Show.
We are God's eyes and hands and even mind in solving the problems of this world. You for example could be an advocate working in hospitals with parents with children going throught similar things or be a chaplain in a hospital. I was an emergency room chaplain and I think I was helpful to many families in crisis.
I wish I could put you in touch with another mom I know whose son has stage 4 neuroblastoma -- and over the last year her 4 year old son has become deaf because of chemo, and she has watched other children with her son's cancer die... but through all this, she has been stalwart in proclaiming that she has known God's presence and has experienced many graces. Her faith is astounding and I am in awe of it.
My heart breaks for you and your son -- I know you're both going through so much.
The difficult answer is that there just isn't an answer to the "why."
I do believe that God is with you and especially with your son, but why God sometimes intervenes and sometimes doesn't, I can't claim to know -- and even if I did, nothing I could say to you would be sufficient, would it...? Because I, as a human, can't see things from God's eternal perspective.
The best discussion I've ever read on this difficult concept is "The Shack" by William P. Young. http://www.theshackbook.com/
I know you don't think it will account for much, but I will be in prayer for you and your son.
(There is a school of thought, called "process-relational" theology, which says that God is still in formation, suffering with us, and adjusting God's formation in relation to what events occur...I don't know...I'm not that familiar with this concept, but it is the efforts of some theologians to explain why there is sickness, evil and suffering in the world).
God gave man will. Man chose to worship Perfection or to worship himself the selfish ME. By worshipping the ME greed came into play, hoarding occurs. Hunger occurs, abuse of chemicals are used that injury us, the earth is abused. rape happens, slavery is evident, disease becomes evident, the have nots and the haves exist. God knows that this happens, but He respect will, we are the ones who decide what will occur in this world, good or evil. He could intervene, but He is infinite and when He says or does something He means it. He respected our being, not being pushy. It is up to us to help each other and make this world a better place, which is possible, seeking the Good or seek the ME.
There is a place in Juarez, Mexico where they dump the trash, people live around the dump in card board houses. They live off the trash, daily scouring the trash for thing to sell and eat. The family, including the kids work in the smoke filled environment from sun up to sun down. They eat what they have found the night before. Such is life. Greed enters in the picture. One day the kids found a irredescent gooey substance, wow how beautiful it was. They got it and shared it with their friends. They brought it home, shared it with their families. Maybe they could sell it. They made necklaces, spead it on their bodies, etc. How unlucky they were. A foreign company had illegally dumped radioactive waste into the dump. Those that came into contact of course died a horrible death. The company, gone. God did not interfere. Man had chosen to be greedy, to worship the Me. I moarn for all the poverty in this world. It is overwhelming. My wife and I go to Juarez sometimes early and see the kids sleeping in the streets abandoned by their parents because they cannot afford to keep them. I see people with tumors, diseases, old people just laying in the street, people walk over them and could not care less, that god of Me. I too am guilty I guess. I tried calling an ambulance and they told me to butt out, the man had no money and there was no service that would pick him off the street.
I hear about the slave trade here in El Paso, TX, the US sister city of Juarez in El Paso, where women and girls are found in homes ready for shipment to other cities. God, no He didn't do it. We are so busy spending money on the war, pork barrel projects, pharmacutical companies making the big bucks. I bet we could have solved the disease of cancer with that money. Oh so many Me's exist. So don't blame God. He is respectful of His creation, blame Man and his choices. Pray that He may intervene. Amen.
We don't fully know why God allows suffering, but we do know it is not caused in any way by your child's actions or spiritual state. Sometimes those who love God suffer and the Bible tells us of this (i.e. the book of Job). Jesus suffered. Sometimes good things are given to those who are bad. We don't settle the score or even know why things are so confusing and painful. For example, I have bipolar disorder and it makes my life very difficult and affects me in countless ways. I have to live differently, manage myself in ways other people don't. It is hard and lonely.
Christians often have greater faith and get to know God more intimately during pain and suffering than when content or pacified. This has been the case with me, many times. Knowing God, not just "being" saved but knowing him as a person and source of strength and loving father or parent, is the ultimate purpose (whether we realize this or not) for all we do. In knowing him, our lives become richer and more deeply felt.
God has promised to right wrongs, heal, and restore us in ways greater than we can know now. Christians believe this, but many people doubt it. Whether or not it is rational to believe this is a different debate, but as a Christian that is what I can say about you and your son right now.