Pain... why?

I was just thinking about all the pain that is in life. Yesterday I heard the story of a nine-year-old becoming pregnant by her mom's boyfriend. Young enough to be jumping on the bed with her brother... she had the baby, came home and the mom took care of it, then, yes ... then she got pregnant again by the same man. How could this happen to a nine-year-old? She is a child. How could this man still walk the streets or even be allowed into this home? That is a messed-up situation.

It kind of makes my childhood look like roses.

I've been reading a book called "Same Kind of Different as Me" and it's about a modern-day slave who became a homeless man and how he became friends with this international art dealer. Reading about the things that happened to this slave/sharecropper homeless man, it just didn't seem fair. None of it seems fair. The things that we do to others and the things that are done to us.

But it hit me anew as I was praying this morning that it is the mercy of God that has kept us from the eternal fires of hell. In His mercy He did not destroy us. Why are we suffering here and now? It is because God is giving us one more chance to know Him and trust in Him for eternal salvation. He will come back someday and right all the wrongs. He will come and judge all of our sins, in ways that we could never judge ourselves, because He is the only one righteous. He will judge the child rapists, the murderers, the abortionists, He will judge you and me as well. And the evil that I have done. But I will be found blameless because Jesus took my place. His blood covers over my sins. My little sins of bad words, disobedience, and my big sins of hatred and other things that I don't feel the freedom to mention here. But he has covered them.

I would encourage you to watch this today:

www.deathisnotdying.com

It's 55 minutes that will rock you to the core.