I've been so deep in thought lately about things around me. I've been seriously thinking about the world and its effects on the lives of the people around me (and sometimes me). I sit back sometimes and ponder what is happening and wonder how it is that we have come to have some of these evil things in our world. How do people come to the conclusion one day that they will do something that will obviously effect someone's life in a negative way?

I work in a place that I can sometimes see the effects of evil on little children. I work in a building that children come to visit their parents when the children have been placed in foster homes. Sometimes during the day, I can hear a child screaming from the trauma of being pulled away from their parent to be taken back to a foster home. This breaks my heart. Yesterday, I witnessed this while waiting for the elevator. I was coming from a meeting on a different floor. In the conference room behind me while I waited for the elevator, there was a little girl, maybe 3 years old, who was being held by the medical transporter and was being taken away from what appeared to be her very young mother. The child was screaming and kicking, and the mother was curled up on the couch in the room in the fetal position crying and rocking. My heart was broken. It was broken for the mother who has come to this place in her life because, most likely, of circumstances and the effects of evil on her....and my heart was broken because the cycle was repeating with her child. I quietly whispered a prayer of comfort for the mother and child; I quietly whispered a prayer that their pain and suffering would somehow end and that they would find rest. Yesterday, what I witnessed was not rest.

I didn't know either of these people. I don't know their circumstances, but from the outward pouring of emotions, it was obvious that they were broken on the inside. The enabler/fixer person in me wanted to help in any way possible, but the startling realization for me is that there is nothing humanly possible that I can do. I prayed for them - which seems small. I know God can work in their lives, but I struggle with the question that I'm left with - what happens if this is how God is working in their lives? I know God does not orchestrate evil, but for me the greater question I ask sometimes is why doesn't He stop the pain? People are in pain - emotionally, physically, mentally....God is all powerful. Why doesn't He swoop in to stop the pain? I don't say this in a harsh or angry way. I'm not bitter, but I'm heartbroken. Why, God, do you not step in and stop this little girl from feeling the pain of what is going on here? This is a pain she may never recover from. I understand completely about consequences...what I struggle with is the consequences that the seemingly innocent are forced to reckon with.

I paused briefly yesterday from this thought. I paused to wipe the tears from my eyes, which took me by surprise. I paused and thought about God and pain. Then, it hit me. Jesus Christ was the innocent and He willingly chose to feel the pain. He willingly stepped onto the cross for the weak, the broken, the broken hearted, the sinners and took the pain. God did not step in to stop His own Son's pain because He loved me. I know that the scripture says He loved the world, but the realization for me is that He took the pain for me specifically. That little girl may never recover from the pain she felt, but someday, in my prayer, someone will tell her about the love of God. The love of God constrains us....Jesus came to heal the broken and broken hearted. That's the hope I cling to in order to understand how it is that the innocent feel so much pain from the consequences of the evil ones. Jesus took on the pain to be able to heal the broken. . . A stirring realization of that right before my eyes. I wasn't the same the rest of the day. still this morning, I'm not the same. My heart is still broken for the little girl I saw yesterday, but my prayer has been that God will show Himself mightily to her and that she will someday be able to feel the love of God and His healing power.