Why Does God Allow Bad Things to Happen to Good People?

Worldview
September 27, 2016
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This past Saturday I found out that a young woman I met (Diane Horrilleno) while I was stationed in Okinawa, Japan – died after a 5-year battle with breast cancer. I found out because one of the several posts I saw in my timeline from someone who knew Diane was something along the lines of why do bad things happen to good people? And I know that a question many believers have is “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?”

Here’s why Diane’s death tore me up.

I was friends with her on Facebook. So I would see pictures of her from time to time in the hospital with cut hair or her head shaved. But since I hadn’t seen anything like prayer requests, I thought that perhaps her treatments were working. After all, I had an aunt who was in her 80s who had beat breast cancer. And the last time she woke up from treatment for the cancer, she woke up asking when she was going to eat! So I knew that breast cancer is not a death sentence.

Well, when I saw the post that she had died that morning, everything went silent in my spirit. I called my mother to tell her what happened. As I was telling her I told her I had to cut the call short to go for a walk. Because the question her friend was implying was a fair one and the feelings behind that question were threatening to rise up in me. Diane was one of those rare people who ALWAYS displayed the joy of the Lord. Even in those pictures I remember seeing with her in the hospital bed with her hair shaved, she had that same smile I remembered from when she was well.

See, I knew better than to ask God why. In fact, I’d gone through a period of asking God why He allowed people to suffer the way they do. I went through a period in my young adult life of questioning God and shaking my fist at Him. It went on for quite a while. But in that process the Lord actually answered me. I came across the fact that we suffer the things we do in this world because it was the choice that Adam and Eve made. God NEVER intended for us to live the way we do. But He gave us the gift of choice and SOMEbody chose to disobey God and everything went downhill from there. But that truth doesn’t take away the sting of trauma, suffering, the ugliness of life and of death. It doesn’t take away the nauseating reality of a bad hand of cards dealt to the undeserving. It doesn’t provide comfort when we face the sobering consequences of being God’s willfully sinful creation.

As I remembered Diane, my spirit was filled with a very strange and unfamiliar mixture of acceptance but sadness. But on top of that I felt terrible because I had missed the fact that she had been in a losing battle for the past 5 years with breast cancer. If my spirit was a person, her head sagged in sadness and shame that I didn’t pray for her. That I didn’t ask my church family to pray for her. One of the responses I received when I did bring it to my prayer group was that the Lord forgives and basically to let it go. I know the Lord forgives, but the Lord has also been calling me to a specific calling that I’ve been avoiding. Diane’s death proved very personally why I needed to stop avoiding it. Her death proved that in a world created for us by choices we’ve made and ones we didn’t make – one of the very few lifelines we have is our prayer life.

As I walked that evening and remembered Diane, I remembered how she was the nurse who was assigned to me the day I had a fairly significant dental surgery. I remember how I almost completely woke up DURING THE SURGERY panicking but she calmed me right down. We’d talked earlier about life and many things prior to the actual surgery. She was so full of joy and God’s love. She was a beautiful young woman with a husband and children. And she was always SMILING!

Why am I telling you this? As I walked I prayed and asked God for quite a few things. One of which was that her life’s account of the (I’m sure) many patients whose lives she touched would not go unheard. That her example of a life lived for the Lord would bring others closer to Him. That we would realize how short life really is and make the most of every day the Lord gives us. I’ve realized since that Saturday evening that my prayers may not have changed the outcome of Diane’s fate. But what if they had? What if my prayers and making her situation known to other believers would have had an impact not only on her but on the lives of those who came to know her situation?

We can’t go back in time – only forward. And going forward I’ll never know the answers to my questions above. That is the part that I needed to let go…and I have. But I will hold on to the lesson learned. I thank the Lord that He sent an angel named Diane Horilleno to sit with me the day I had dental surgery – where I was afraid of the doctor performing the surgery! Where I catastrophized the outcome in my mind (like all us drama queen writers do) and realized I couldn’t write out my goodbyes before I died on that unusual and strange little island I was SO ready to leave. I thank the Lord that she crossed my path. I thank the Lord for her life. I thank the Lord for her example. And I thank the Lord that her death loosened the final grip of resistance to my calling. I thank the Lord for His mercy and grace because it’s the only reason I’m here. And I know that He is smiling on her with that same mercy and grace.