Dear Tannhauser,

I get what you’re saying. These are valid questions many of us have had. It’s hard to reconcile a good God with the adversity and disappointment we see in the world and in our own lives. Did you ever pour out your heart to God and just have it out with Him? He’s not afraid of our anger and doubts and questions.

I remember feeling the same way some years ago when one of my sons was diagnosed with cancer at age 4.  After weeks and months of sitting in a pediatric oncology ward and seeing all the kids with cancer, some recovering, some dying, all of them suffering, I could have written a letter much like you wrote above. But I just seethed inside. I never said anything to anyone. Then one night I had it out with him. I just let Him have it and left it there. To cut a long story short I felt He gave me a different perspective, and comfort, and renewed courage to go on, and we got through that time.

I think our problem is that we want heaven here on earth, and this sin-cursed world will never be heaven. No matter what your religion we all experience pain, difficulties and suffering. Jesus said, “I tell you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world”. He knows there will be trouble and problems and suffering. Yet we long for more, for a better place, for justice, love, peace, goodness.

Jonathan Cahn in The Book of Mysteries writes, “When we came into this world, we entered it with a longing. We longed for milk. We had no idea what milk was. We had never tasted it. We had never seen it. Nobody ever told us that it existed. And yet the longing for milk was there inside our being before we ever had any assurance that it existed. And it turned out it did exist. What we longed for we only knew from the hunger deep inside our being. Our longing for milk passes away, but we find another longing within our hearts, another emptiness, but deeper, a longing for that which the world never answers. We long for the perfect, for a perfect love, a perfect happiness, a perfect peace. We long for that which doesn’t fail, never disappoints us, or grows old. But the world can never answer those longings and they stay with us all our lives. We long for them even though we’ve never tasted them. And our very longings bear witness that what we have never seen or tasted is real. We long for a perfect love because there is a Perfect Love. We long for the Eternal because the Eternal exists and put that longing into our hearts so we would seek Him..and find Him.”  But if we look for the heavenly on earth, we’ll surely be disappointed.

Best wishes to you!