I’ve been listening to NPR’s Morning Edition series “Losing Our Religion“ the last two  mornings. The interviews are filled with intelligent religious questions that are probing and often heart-wrenching as I consider the wandering path so many take and eventually discard in the search for truth. The questions posed are worthy of discussion, as many of us at times, perhaps even now, struggle with these ideas about religion. As you read the following question from today’s episode and consider your response, please think of it as if you are responding to someone dear to you, who you love and genuinely want to help, without condescension or hollow platitudes.

This was asked by a young man whose mother had cancer on multiple occasions and eventually succumbed to the disease:

While I was younger, my father drank a lot. There was abuse in the home. My brother committed suicide in 2001. So at some point you start to say, “Why does all this stuff happen to people?” And if I pray and nothing good happens, is that supposed to be I’m being tried? I find that almost kind of cruel in some ways. It’s like burning ants with a magnifying glass. Eventually that gets just too hard to believe anymore.

Photo credit:  Dave Lawler via Compfight