Pain and Suffering

The following has been attributed to Robin Williams. I don't know if that is correct or not, but it is certainly worth sharing.

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This is one of the best explanations
of why God allows pain and suffering
that I have seen. It's an explanation
all people can understand.

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed.
As the barber began to work,they talked about so many things
and various subjects.

When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said:
'I don't believe that God exists.'

'Why do you say that?' asked the customer.
'Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God
doesn't exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people?
Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither
suffering nor pain. I can't imagine loving a God who would allow all of
these things.'

The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't
want to start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer
left the shop.

Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long,
stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and un-kept.

The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said
to the barber: 'You know what? Barbers do not exist.'

'How can you say that?' asked the surprised barber.
'I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!'

'No!' the customer exclaimed. 'Barbers don't exist because if they did,
there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards,
like that man outside.'

'Ah, but barbers DO exist! What happens is, people do not come to me.'

'Exactly!'- affirmed the customer. 'That's the point!

God, too, DOES exist!
What happens, is, people don't go to Him and do not look for Him.
That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world.'

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I believe in God and have gone to Him many times. I do believe He is a good and righteous God. I also know that we live in a fallen world and that sickness and pain is a part of that.

My sons are having a hard time with that. I am having a hard time explaining how deep my faith is to them.

I was first diagnosed with my inoperable brain tumor in 1993 and told that I probably had 6 months to live. I had 5 weeks of strong radiation treatment (the max I can ever have on my head). During my treatments, strapped on a table on a room with rotating robot arms going over me, I would recite the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm over and over until they became my whole world. ( It is the same technique I use while in the MRI machines). Near the end of the treatments, as I was absorbed in God's Word one day, the most awesome thing happened. God spoke to me. He spoke in my heart but I heard Him just as clearly as I could hear the machinery moving. He called me His Child. He told me to continue to have Faith and that I would live to see my children graduate.

Simple words. I'm a simple girl. Nothing so special about me, but I am His Child. I certainly knew that before, but how life-changing to hear My Father tell me. I am willing to accept the pain, the disabilities and the limitations because He is fulfilling His promise of letting me live long enough to see my children graduate. Now that high school graduation is so close... I'm looking forward to college graduation. After all, He didn't specify. I love my Lord, He is very real and I trust Him through my pain.