What to do With a Bad Decade

Suffering and death remain a mystery. We can understand some kinds of suffering as the result of human freedom and choice. But other suffering is so great and so unfair and so terrible that we want to look to the heavens and say, "Why, God? Where were you? Why didn't you stop that?"

As a pastor and a human being who has walked this earth for almost half a century, I have learned that there are things to be learned in suffering. Only you can't tell people that while they are in the middle of it. To say to someone in grief, "You'll learn something from this" is cruel. People have to make their way through their pain. Later we can look back and sometimes see the bigger picture.

High Calling Blogger L.L. Barkat has experienced a lot of death lately. She has written about gaining perspective after a bad day or year or even decade.

"The night before I went to Mount Hermon, a dear friend of ours passed away quite unexpectedly— a massive stroke, in a young man. The day I returned, I had news from another friend, whose sister just lost her newborn son. My trip, so life giving in many ways, was bookended by death.

Yesterday, a wonderful speaker, Jason Gaboury, came to our church. He talked about what it is like when we have a bad day, a bad year, or even a bad decade." Read More.