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seen wearing a kelly-green hooded
sweat shirt; white, pink and purple
knit short-sleeved blouse with hori–
zontal stripes, lavender long pants
and rainbow striped flip flop san–
dais. Last seen-4 p.m. Thursday,
October 18, 1984."
1
was immediately reminded of
my own girls, thankfully now much
older, and my heart reached out for
little Laura Ann and Laura Ann's
parents.
That's many months ago, 1
thought to myself. 1 wonder if she's
all right? 1wonder if she's still alive?
Early next day 1 called the authori–
ties, hoping for news. "We're no
closer to finding little Laura now
than we were the day she was miss–
ing," carne the sad reply. "There are
no suspects and no leads."
Where ls God?
Such stories are emotionally drain–
ing. Hardly anything affects one as
muchas witnessing or hearing about
such tragedies involving small chil–
dren like 11-year-old Kevin and lit–
tle 3-year-old Laura Ann. Why,
many ask, does God Jet these things
happen to little children? Why does
God allow litt le children to suffer
and die? Why does God Jet thou–
sands of healthy children die each
year because of accidents?
Overwhelmed and emotionally
distraught, perhaps even on the
verge of anger and bitterness
because of a heartrending incident
involving a litt le child, sorne people
lash out in harshness: "1 can't
believe in a God who would let that
happen!" Or, " 1 can't worship a
God who allows awful diseases and
accidents!"
How
are
we to explain an eterna!,
everliving, all-wise, all-knowing God
who allows painful suffering and
death to happen to innocent little
children, not only
now
but through–
out recorded human history?
Tragedies involving little chil–
dren, such as the widely published
plight of the starving Ethiopian and
other African children-their little
bodies emaciated, diseased and
dying, their bellies bloated-are
never easy to take. But before we
blame God for the multitude of ter–
rible, heartrending tragedies
af–
flicti ng little children and people
worldwide, we need to stop and
understand. Have you ever stopped
32
to ask yourself if there may be rea–
sons why God allows sad events and
suffering to occur?
Whose Fault? Whose
Responsibility?
Is God totally to blame? Shall we
humans assume no responsibilities?
And what about a devi l? Philoso–
phers and theologians, scientists
and agnostics have all puzzled over
these questions.
Consider the thousands of little
children maimed and killed by acci–
dents. There's a cause for every
effect. Faulty equipment, careless–
ness, human miscalculations, lack of
training, drunkenness. How many
fires occur because children play
with matches? Or because people
smoke and fall asleep on a sofa or in
bed? How many small children are
severely injured and permanently
scarred or maimed through scalding
accidents; or die from drinking caus–
tic, deadly solutions negligently left
witbin their Iittle reach?
Potentially dangerous toys,
loaded guns, unguarded swimming
pools, children darting into the
path of oncoming automobiles–
and you can name others-claim
children's lives daily. Parents,
often, are either careless or fail to
teach cbildren proper precautions.
Do humans bear no fault? God,
of course, bears responsibi lity if he
is God! And what about a deceiving
devil? How do we account for a
deceived and deluded world of suf–
fering?
Bables: Alcohollcs and Drug
Addlcts
Consider another tragic example.
Worldwide, babies are born already
addicted to alcohol or hard drugs
because their mothers were addicts
during pregnancy. Imagine these
babies' first taste of life. They enter
the world suffering painful alcohol
or addiction withdrawal symptoms.
Sorne die in the process.
Can we begin to understand the
human part in the suffering and
death children endure? There is a
human responsibility involved even
befare a baby is born. After birth
parents have an even greater duty
to teach, protect and watch over
their children.
Parents must especially know
what their little toddlers are doing
and where they are. Perhaps more
of this kind of awareness would
have prevented tbe disappearance
of little Laura Ann.
But the more we open our minds,
and the deeper we search for
understanding about why little
children suffer, disappear or die,
and why people have suffered terri–
ble evils throughout history, the
more we must acknowledge the
human responsibility involved, even
for such diseases from which 11-
year-old Kevin suffered and died.
There is only one source avail–
able to give us this needed under–
standing of the causes of so much
human suffering and misery. That
source- which holds life-giving
and life-preserving knowledge- is
the Bible.
A Series of Wrong Choices
Since the beginning of human
experience God reveals he has giv–
en humans freedom of choice–
freedom to act rigbtly, act wrongly
or not act at all.
The answers to our problems
begin to unfold once we read the
episode that took place in the gar–
den of Eden.
It
is there that we
must go to find the fundamental
answers to the basic dilemmas of
humanity and humanity's suffer–
ings that have so long puzzled phi–
losophers.
Scripture reveals that God
created the first humans in his very
own image. That is, he imparted
mind power to our first parents–
the ability to think, plan, reason
and create-and, most important,
the ability to exercise decision–
making powers.
The first two humans were given
a choice. Since God gave them a
choice, God is in charge. He is
therefore
responsible
for whatever
happens. But if the first humans
chose freely to go the wrong way,
the
fau/t
is theirs and the penal ties
theirs and their children's! lnstead
of choosing to obey God's govern–
ment over thei r lives and do things
God's way, they chose to do things
their way.
God advised them to take of the
"tree of life," which symbolized
outgoing concern for others, God's
way of doing things, obedience to
bis authority, and acceptance of his
revealed knowledge, leading even-
The
PLAIN TRUTH