-Fr. John Roche, SDB
It happened again. An innocent child is caught in the cross-fire of urban gang wars and a community is rocked to the core. People of faith question deeply, ministers fumble for words, and the pain only widens. Where is God in all of this?
I remember questioning God in a similar situation. Driving through California as the vocation director of my province, my eyes were drawn to the smiling face of a 10-year-old boy whose photo was displayed in flyer after flyer taped on windows and walls at every gas station as I headed down Interstate 5. This innocent child was abducted at knife-point from his own yard. His parents’ pleas for help on television, radio and in the countless flyers were heart-breaking. I folded up one of these flyers piled on the counter at one gas station, put it in my breast pocket, held my hand over that note beside my heart and pleaded with God: “Surely you hear the cries of this terrified child and the pleading of his parents. Please don’t let this one suffer such atrocity. Just this once, put someone onto this trail in time!”
I continued with my visits up and down the coast and returned to my community later that week. I will never forget the punch in the gut I felt as I turned on the late news with the word that the remains of that desperate child were found in the desert. He had been bound, molested and murdered. I was devastated and could not imagine how his parents must feel. I railed against God that night in my room. Was he deaf to these children and their families? Ironically, the Gospel for the coming Sunday would proclaim that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who goes in search of the lost. How could I speak honestly about my feelings? I had decided I would announce that I was not feeling well and would excuse myself from the homily.
Saturday evening I went to visit my mother and I was careful not to burden her with my questions and my anger, but she could tell that something was not quite right. She pressed me to open up, but I made the same excuse I was planning to use at the parish Masses for Sunday. While she readied herself for supper, I sat on her couch and read a small magazine with stories of faith offering messages from people experiencing the love and mercy of God.
There was one story about a man who had gotten stuck in a blizzard a short distance from his farm-home. He had been helping a neighbor work on his tractor, unaware of the weather conditions worsening outside the garage. This young man ventured into the blizzard with his dog and an ATV, not immediately worried. Though his own home was less than a mile away, the white-out conditions mounted and he soon lost his bearings. Panic grew rapidly in his heart as he realized he could be stranded and die. Not a praying man, he decided to turn to God and ask for help. In the howling wind he heard a voice speak: “Just a little farther.” Confused, he wondered if hypothermia was setting in. He tried to start the ATV again, and the effort threw him from the vehicle, landing him in even more confusion. Now he was face down in the mounting snow. His energy was draining rapidly and he was tempted to simply give up and allow himself to be overcome. His dog had tried to lead the way and was now well out of sight.
Again, gently, the voice spoke: “Just a little farther.” At this point, the desperate man was convinced he was hallucinating and was ready to give up, but his dog came bounding back, licked his face until he awakened and in his final attempt to restart the vehicle, it threw him again, but this time into a property fence post. Grabbing onto this post, he pulled himself along the fence blindly until it brought him home.
And then it struck me. Here I was angry at God. I was blaming him for the horrors of sin and suffering. I had acted as if this God knew nothing of the pain of these families and children, and had decided God did not care. But how dreadfully wrong I had been. Not only did God understand, he was a Father whose own son was wrongly treated, abandoned, tortured and killed. He was a Father who knew deeply the effects of sin and selfishness and the price of mounting evil. And yet he still loved us and gave us all he could. Even now, in my doubt, God was not condemning me. He simply asked me, in the blizzard of evil, in that blinding moment of doubt, to believe in Him and trust in him “just a little farther.”
I have tried to do that whenever I find myself doubting. I never try to explain God or even defend God. But now I encourage others to be honest in their prayer. Show God their confusion and anger, and no matter what, go with him just a little farther.