Recently friends and family have asked for prayer for a variety of trials and sicknesses.  Many have asked for healing, for miraculous intervention and restoration.  Some have received the answer to the prayers they lifted up.  Their prayers were answered in the way they desired.  And they have immediately proclaimed the goodness of God in their prayers of thanksgiving.   I agree with them – God is good and all glory should be given to Him. And on a personal level, I am so happy and grateful for them.  Having my heart broken by losing Henry has made hearing of other’s pain almost unbearable, and I’m so relieved to hear good and happy news.

In these situations, however, the statement of “God is good” always sits a little uneasy with me and I’ve had to really think and reflect on why.  Is God only good when He gives us what we long for?  Is God only good to some people?  Does He only answer some people’s prayers for healing and not others? If so, how can I get on the “people who get what they want” list?   Can God still be good even when my prayers go unanswered?  Is He good when my heart is broken and hurting?

I know what I have been taught and I know what I believe, but why?

When I found Henry unresponsive in the crib that August day, I prayed for him to wake up.  When I did CPR on his body, I prayed for him to breathe.  When I was riding in the front of the ambulance as Henry was being taken to the hospital, I prayed.  I prayed for God to save Henry’s life, for me to get to keep him here on earth for the rest of my life, for a miracle to happen.  Then I prayed that if God was intent on taking Henry, that He take me too.  I begged God to not make me live with the pain of losing one of my children.  I told Him that I couldn’t do it.

He did not give me the answer I wanted.  And in a matter of about an hour – from the time I found Henry in his crib to the moment when the doctor and nurse came to tell us that Henry was gone, everything I had built up in my life came crashing down.  It was like an effect in a movie when the camera zooms in on a character while at the same time zooms out on the background.  Much of the faith I had proclaimed almost my entire life went floating away on the wind and I was left standing on the foundation of knowledge I had chosen to believe as a child – God is good.

“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood become a matter of life and death to you.” – C.S. Lewis

God is good?  It did not feel like God was very good at that time. But maybe God’s character is not dependent on my situation, or my feelings. Maybe it’s possible that I, in my finite knowledge and experience, cannot understand an eternal, all powerful God. Maybe this life isn’t all there is, and maybe the goodness of God doesn’t look like what I think it should.

I began reading C.S. Lewis’s “A Grief Observed” shortly after Henry’s death.  He writes about his struggle to accept God’s goodness in the face of his suffering and the pain and suffering he sees in the world. He eventually draws a conclusion that it’s possible that the pain is necessary in a practical and relatable comparison.

“But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good.  The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless.  But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us?  Well, take your choice.  The tortures occur.  If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one.  If there is a good, God, then these tortures are necessary.  For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t.”

And then he goes on to say that we often claim that we would take the place of one who is suffering. That we would suffer ourselves in order to take away another’s pain.  “But one can’t tell how serious that bid is, for nothing is staked on it.  If it suddenly became a real possibility, then for the first time, we should discover how seriously we had meant it.  But is it ever allowed?  It was allowed to One, we are told, and I find I can now believe again, that He has done vicariously whatever can be so done.  He replies to our babble, ‘You cannot and you dare not.  I could and dared.’”

This alone cements my belief that God is good – that God would love us so much that He would allow His blameless son to suffer and die a criminal’s death in order to redeem us says that He is good beyond my comprehension and that pain is necessary.

We have somehow come to believe that pain cannot equal “good”, that it cannot exist inside of “good.”  But that goes against the purpose God Himself had for his son Jesus, and it goes against not only what we encounter everyday but what I believe God’s purpose is for each of us.

Interesting and compelling characters in great novels have to endure great pain and trials in order to grow and mature. Jo March in Little Women, Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables, Jean Valjean (and almost every other character) in Les Miserables.

Likewise, prophets in the Bible all dealt with pain – Jonah’s vine withering because of the worm God sent, Job losing his family and remaining faithful, Joseph being sold into slavery only then to help save Jacob, his brothers and therefore the nation of Israelites from starvation and famine.

Childbirth?  A mother endures a great deal of pain, but you would be hard pressed to find a mom who would tell you it wasn’t worth it once she’s holding her precious, beautiful newborn.  It usually only takes moments and one kiss on the baby’s forehead to forget the intense, searing pain she endured just minutes before.

Or military training or drill instructors who put their recruits through trial after trial in order for them to become courageous and tenacious soldiers.  Are these instructors bad for intentionally inflicting pain in training?

Or my six-year-old who thinks I’m mean or bad for not allowing him to eat chocolate at every meal and mindlessly play on his iPad during all free time.  Most parents would agree that eating a balanced meal (with dessert!) and using your imagination to play outside is “good” and a far better option for him than what he would choose, but he can’t understand that now.

What if I am like my six-year-old – only wanting chocolate and whatever else makes me happy at the moment? What if C.S. Lewis was right? What if there is purpose for the pain and it is within the mighty and good power of a loving God?

“Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions.  The notions will all be knocked from under our feet.  We shall see that there never was any problem” C.S. Lewis