The Answerer

I have asked this one myself, as have millions of ordinary folk. There is no simple answer. Sorry about that, but is a very common, very complex (hard to understand and explain) question. I broke my back on the tenth anniversary of the birth of my only son. He died six years before. Simple coincidence; or Devil’s work to ‘rub salt into a wound’? Nobody laughed for years in our family, after he died. You may have good reason to ask it too. We all eventually have to ‘deal’ with what we are given (like in a game of cards) because we cannot see the future. God can! Many folk pay money to find out the future from people who think they can tell them the future. They can never be truly sure but they do take people’s money for their opinion. “Humph!” A seventeen-year-old disabled girl, and me, have said “Thank you” to God for the serious disability…and the life that came after it. For me it was not easy! Mrs Joni Eriksson-Tada was one. Joni had a diving accident and became a quadriplegic as a seventeen-year-old girl. Like me, it took years to get used to quadriplegia, but Joni has written, I think seventeen books on how God has led her since her diving accident. She’s helped many! Me, at 39 years of age, I got baptised. A clear voice said then: “You’ll be working with children.” I had no idea what it meant and the guy who baptised me heard nothing. I soon forgot about it. Four years later I had a fall at home, got paraplegia and got into a wheelchair. I was enrolled at University two years later. I became a teacher at 49 yo. Did that for seven years and became a Scripture teacher in 1988. This year is my 23rd year as a Scripture teacher, and this book is a part of ‘big picture’ of which I knew nothing when I broke my back. They have been the best years of my life. If somebody had told me that all of that would happen in the future – I would have laughed at such a ‘wild’ idea. It happened! We ask this question pointing our finger at God. But, is He to blame? No. He can and does do miracles but does not make bad things happen to ‘good’ people. He can ‘make lemonade from lemons’. Complainers who point the finger at God and ask: “Why?” do not give God a thought when things go well. Do you agree? My favourite story in the Bible is about a man called Job. The richest man in all that land. God allowed Satan to harm Job really badly. The whole story exposes Satan for what he is. Read in the Bible the book of Job chapters 1 to 3 and 38 to 42. It tells much of the character of Job, Satan, God and men. “What miserable comforter you are. Will your long winded speeches never end?” said Job (Job 16:1-2). Well worth reading.