When you believe in a good God, it can be hard to come to terms with the fact that He has allowed adversity to touch your life or your loved one’s. Think about it.
If God knows everything, this diagnosis did not surprise Him.
If God sees everything, He saw the bad news coming.
If God has power over everything, He could have stopped it.
But He didn’t.
He didn’t stop you or your loved one from getting cancer or heart disease or dementia or whatever ailment has invaded your lives.
Would you like to know why?………….Join the club!
My journalist-friend Mike Dellosso 
was awaiting the release of his first novel[1] when his colorectal cancer was diagnosed.
At only thirty-five, with a wife and three young children, he wondered what God was doing (or not doing) in his life.
“Lord, in my head, I know You’re in control,
but my heart is wondering what’s going on here,” he said.
“You sure You know what You’re doing?”
My author-friend David Biebel talks about this dilemma in his book If God Is So Good, Why Do I Hurt So Bad He says there are two truths suffering people have to reconcile:
Sometimes life is agony
And our loving God is in control
In the beginning, it was hard for me to reconcile these truths. I honestly found that at first my faith made things harder rather than easier as I had to struggle with the fact that I loved and faithfully served God for many years and yet He let something really bad happen to me when I knew He had the power to stop it. I’ve heard some people without faith respond to cancer very nonchalantly because they have kind of a “que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be” approach to life.
But for me, it’s different. I don’t believe that life is merely a series of random events that happen to us. I believe I have a Heavenly Father who loves me, watches over me and has good plans for my life. So, why did a nice girl like me get a not-nice thing like cancer 28 years ago?
The reality is that God’s Word never promises that He will stop all bad things from happening to us. On the contrary, it promises us that He is prepared for each battle and will equip us, too.
The Message Bible paraphrases 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 this way:
We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized;
we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized.
But God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken.
No matter how unfair life may be to you or your loved one, God will be faithful to you because He is good.
Psalm 34:8 “Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”
Psalm 145:8,9 “The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The LORD is good to all; He has compassion on all He has made.”
[1] The Hunted, Realms, 2008. www.mikedellosso.com
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