suffering

For the last month, I've been sitting on the sidelines of suffering...

A friend's sister is struck down by an aneurysm deep in her brain. During the week's vigil at the hospital, her husband contracts the flu. Then one of her children. Her responsibilities at work must wait while she sits helpless, grieving, bewildered.

Job to his little girl: "Beware Jemimah, God is kind in ways that will not fit your mind."--John Piper, The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God

The Shack is still #2 on the New York Times Best-Seller list. And I am among the millions who have read and enjoyed it. William Young has written a page-burner about theodicy and the nature of the Trinity. No small feat.

In April I had the privilege of hearing veteran missionary, Dr. Helen Roseveare, speak at a staff conference for field missionaries of Entrust, International, in Hungary. Today I finished her book, He Gave Us a Valley.  In it, Helen describes her twenty years of ministry in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.