During church tonight, I sat behind a little boy who only had one arm. He was probably only 8 or 9 years old. His right arm ended just above where the elbow would be. He had on a long sleeve shirt to protect him from the cold and his right sleeve was rolled up, so that the tip of his damaged arm protruded from the sleeve. I saw this boy and I wanted to weep. He was so young and innocent looking. He had red hair gelled up into little spikes. He was wearing a pair of Wranglers and some little black boots. This little boy did nothing to deserve this catastrophe. I couldn't stop looking at him. All I could think was that this poor boy will never know what it's like to be normal. No matter how hard he tries, he will always be handicapped.
While I was thinking about this boy's unfair situation, the preacher happened to be teaching the lesson about Job. If you are unfamiliar with the story of Job, God dares Satan to tempt Job, who is a righteous servant of the Lord, into sinning. Satan kills everyone Job cares about, except his wife and takes away all his physical possessions with the hope that Job will sin by rejecting God. When Job does not give in, Satan causes Job to be covered in boils. The majority of the Old Testament book deals with Job discussing his situation with a few friends. They say that Job is being punished and so he must have sinned. Job maintains that he is righteous, but he does ask God why this is happening to him. At the conclusion of the book, God reveals himself to Job in the form of a whirlwind. After all Job has suffered, God rebukes Job for asking why. He tells Job not to question him, because he is much more powerful and wise than Job. Then God restores everything Job lost and gives him more. I suppose my preacher would say the moral of the story is to be faithful to God even when our lives are difficult, because we do not understand everything like God does.
I am sitting in the pew next to my father listening to a lesson about how we should accept our circumstances and directly in front of me is a small boy with one arm. The irony was almost too much to take.
If I was a person of great faith, I may have seen this as an opportunity to grow spiritually by recognizing that as I listened to a lesson about faith, my own faith was being tested. I would then have concluded that everything that happens is in God's plan and it is not my place to question. Fortunately, I am not this person. So, I became very angry and very sad.
Simply concluding that we cannot understand why bad things happen is not good enough for me. I need to know why. I need to know what human suffering has to do with God's miraculous plan. If God is so powerful, why doesn't he give that little boy back his arm? Does he want us to learn a lesson? Is it to test that innocent little boy's faith? Has he set certain natural forces into effect that he won't alter? I hope not, because those are fucking terrible reasons.
Then I noticed that the boy's father was holding him, almost protecting him. He had his own arm around his son and he was rubbing the boy's shoulder. Again, I almost wept. I wanted to give this man all the love in my heart so that he could pass it on to that boy, who will surely need it more than I will. It was a simple scene. It was a father holding his son, but it really hit me hard. I knew that man loved his son and would devote his life to loving and protecting him. In that moment, I felt so much hope for the human race. I felt like, even though we are weak and hateful, we can be noble too. Even though I knew, this boy's life would be hard, I was glad to know that he could rely on his father to always, unconditionally love him.
While I was thinking about this boy's unfair situation, the preacher happened to be teaching the lesson about Job. If you are unfamiliar with the story of Job, God dares Satan to tempt Job, who is a righteous servant of the Lord, into sinning. Satan kills everyone Job cares about, except his wife and takes away all his physical possessions with the hope that Job will sin by rejecting God. When Job does not give in, Satan causes Job to be covered in boils. The majority of the Old Testament book deals with Job discussing his situation with a few friends. They say that Job is being punished and so he must have sinned. Job maintains that he is righteous, but he does ask God why this is happening to him. At the conclusion of the book, God reveals himself to Job in the form of a whirlwind. After all Job has suffered, God rebukes Job for asking why. He tells Job not to question him, because he is much more powerful and wise than Job. Then God restores everything Job lost and gives him more. I suppose my preacher would say the moral of the story is to be faithful to God even when our lives are difficult, because we do not understand everything like God does.
I am sitting in the pew next to my father listening to a lesson about how we should accept our circumstances and directly in front of me is a small boy with one arm. The irony was almost too much to take.
If I was a person of great faith, I may have seen this as an opportunity to grow spiritually by recognizing that as I listened to a lesson about faith, my own faith was being tested. I would then have concluded that everything that happens is in God's plan and it is not my place to question. Fortunately, I am not this person. So, I became very angry and very sad.
Simply concluding that we cannot understand why bad things happen is not good enough for me. I need to know why. I need to know what human suffering has to do with God's miraculous plan. If God is so powerful, why doesn't he give that little boy back his arm? Does he want us to learn a lesson? Is it to test that innocent little boy's faith? Has he set certain natural forces into effect that he won't alter? I hope not, because those are fucking terrible reasons.
Then I noticed that the boy's father was holding him, almost protecting him. He had his own arm around his son and he was rubbing the boy's shoulder. Again, I almost wept. I wanted to give this man all the love in my heart so that he could pass it on to that boy, who will surely need it more than I will. It was a simple scene. It was a father holding his son, but it really hit me hard. I knew that man loved his son and would devote his life to loving and protecting him. In that moment, I felt so much hope for the human race. I felt like, even though we are weak and hateful, we can be noble too. Even though I knew, this boy's life would be hard, I was glad to know that he could rely on his father to always, unconditionally love him.