Dear Stacey:

Sorry for the delay in answering.

Most of the time you will hear people say that this is a near impossible question to answer. I think the question is an easy one -- it all has to do with Free Will.

God allows bad things to happen to people precisely because He loves us so much. His love for us is so great that He gave us part of Himself -- Free Will. Without free will we would be mere animals without the capacity for love and living on instinct and reacting to environmental stimuli.

God created us to love Him and our neighbor. Love cannot be forced, it must be freely chosen. Thus, God had to give us the ability to choose for ourselves. In doing this He takes the chance that we will not choose Him, but He has to take that risk in order for love to exist at all.

He gave the angels the same ability to choose. Lucifer and one-third of the angels choose to rebel against God and to reject Him. We have the same choice.

As the old saying goes, "One cannot be 99% pregnant, either you is or you ain't." The same goes for Free Will. Mankind cannot have 99% Free Will. Either we have it or we don't. If we do not then we cannot love God or anyone else for that matter.

Thus, God allows us to make choices. Some of those choices are evil and some are good. Evil choices will hurt ourselves and others. All of us are effected by the bad (and good) decisions of others. We can become victims of others' sin, others' choice to sin in a way that hurts us.

There can be no other way, since for God to stop the evil in the world, He would have to take away our Free Will, and that means taking away are ability to love. God has given us the ability to choose and to act on the evil in the world. We are his emissaries of goodness on this planet. Why doesn't He do something. He has! He created you and me to fight against evil. Thus, He gives this planet a people who can affect good and evil and does so without violating anyone's free will.

We must also remember that God sees the whole picture. While something may be a horrific evil, such as the rape and murder of a child, God sees the total picture and knows that even with something that evil, He can bring something good out of it if we let Him. Romans 8:28 promises that "all things work together for good..." This is the promise of God and God is not a liar and does not break His promises. But, as God does not force Himself on us, that good will only be realized if we choose to accept it.

The person who attacked you and blaspheme God made a choice to do so. That ability to choose to do that was given to him by the God he rejects. Forgive the pun, but he should get on his knees and thank God that God allows him to have the choice to reject Him.

There is a great quote attributed to Edmund Burke: "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary