i don't get it

There are so many things that I just don’t understand. From my own life and experiences, I am aware of things like . . .

✓ A young man in his prime gets into an automobile accident, experiencing injuries that render him physically and mentally handicapped for the rest of his life.

✓ An inspiring high school history teacher, the father of four, is struck with a disease and dies within months. His youngest child is only a few months old.

✓ A man in his early forties passes away just two days before Christmas, leaving behind three terrific but heartbroken kids.

✓ A young man in his twenties with everything going his way apparently takes his life.

✓ A high school girl, visiting her grandmother, is thrown from a horse and has to deal with various physical injuries.

✓ A kindhearted man discovers that his wife has been running around on him. She calls to brag about her affair.

✓ A young high school girl learns that her mom and dad have been killed in a car accident by a drunk driver.

✓ A high school boy, while messing around with his friends, is thrown to the sidewalk and receives major head trauma.

✓ Three high school students, returning from a night at the movies, are killed when a drunk man decides to make a U-Turn in front of their car.

✓ An energetic and extremely talented teacher is promised a position at the district where she’s been teaching, but the job goes to a less experienced and less talented outsider who happens to be related to one of the members of the hiring team.

✓ A women comes home from work to discover that her husband has been stealing valuable items from their home. A divorce ensues.

✓ A teacher completes her career and manages to live out her dream of retiring to a beautiful shore resort. Suddenly, and without warning, she passes away just a few weeks into her retirement.

✓ A teenager, who is trying to challenge himself and remain active, has a stroke while doing laps around his school’s track. A few days later he passes away.

✓ A man in his twenties is diagnosed with diabetes. First he loses some toes, then his leg. Shortly thereafter, he dies.

✓ A young missionary gets word that his father is dying. On the way to the hospital, a car runs a stop sign, striking the young man’s car and killing his wife and one of his children. The father dies a short time later.

✓ A very active middle aged woman goes to the doctor for help in getting over a sickness. The doctor, who is too busy to notice, prescribes medication that should not be taken in conjunction with the medicine she is already taking. A few days later, she experiences some sort of stroke, and a couple of days after that, the otherwise healthy woman passes away. She experienced the stroke on the very day one of her daughters was scheduled for her wedding rehearsal. She dies on the day her daughter was supposed to be married.

✓ A man who has battled with drug abuse for years begins to turn his life around. He goes back to school and is doing very well. Then, one afternoon, while volunteering to help one of his professors move, he is involved in a car accident and is killed immediately.

✓ A pastor who had spent countless hours attempting to move a group of people in a more missional direction, is verbally attacked during a Sunday morning church gathering.

✓ A pastor, who had many years ago left a particular church group, is scheduled to perform a grave side service for his deceased grandmother at the cemetery owned by that same church. Though the service went forward, the pastor received word–seemingly out of nowhere and for no particular reason– that he had been officially excommunicated!

All of these stories are true, and each one of them involves a case of which I am personally aware. These are people I know and situations with which I am acquainted.

Of course I am not suggesting that we have no clues about any of these things. Indeed, God has allowed a certain amount of light to illumine our paths, to show us, however incompletely, that he is present with us. Still, the darkness remains for now, and we are left to follow the light where we can find it, guided by hope and the shadow of the cross.