Killer cyclones. Plane crash. Road accident. Murder. Hijacking. Embezzlement. Divorce. Result: loss of a loved one, permanent physical disability, paralysis, financial ruin, trauma, neurosis, death. "Why? Why me?" sob the victims or the bereaved. "What have I done to deserve this?" During the second world war, a German soldier wrenched away a baby suckling at its mother's breast and before her very eyes threw it into the air, laughed and shot its brains out with his revolver. The screaming mother looked into the sky with tears in her eyes and cried out, " Oh God! Where are you right now?" These are moments of great trial for believers and atheists alike. Our angry, anguished minds demand a rational answer and our hearts a soothing, pacifying one. Nothing less than a massive paradigm shift can answer these perplexities and it will take great emotional courage and intellectual insight to comprehend and acknowledge. The essential truth is, we are not objective enough to realize that bad may also be good in the long term and good may turn out to be bad in the long term.
Hitler's birth and childhood brought great joy to his mother, teachers and friends. He was "sunny, well turned-out and companionable." But years later, this adorable child brought the end to six million Jews in Germany and fifty-five million people worldwide! Maybe an early tragic death of this child would have been better for the world.
Please don't get me wrong. I don't mean to say all who die tragically are dormant monsters any more than all those who survive are necessarily angels. The point is, we simply don't know what is going to happen in the long-term future. Recently, for those lucky enough to be able to afford a plane trip from the US to Cairo on the ill-fated Egypt air Fight 990 Boeing 767, it turned out that their financial advantage and rendezvous with technology was "bad". 'Superman' Christopher Reeves' stardom facilitated a rich lifestyle that took him horse-riding. The horse threw him: superman became a paraplegic. Poor people die of malaria or other diseases easily curable by modern medicines. A lack of financial support may save one from a plane crash or horse-riding accident but not necessarily from malaria or malnutrition.
So the question is not really "Why me?" but "Why anybody?" and the answer lies in the simple truth: because of the way we think. We need to turn our scars into stars. Our impossibilities into possibilities. Our failures into opportunities to success.
Author Isabel Allende lost her young daughter, Paula, due to a mistake by medical personnel at a hospital where she had been admitted for a simple illness. Devastated, Allende considered committing suicide, suing the hospital or writing a book to heal herself. She chose the third! "I finally understood what life is about," she wrote. " Life is about losing everything." Life is about celebrating what we have, while we have it. Allende's example and that of countless others demonstrate that what happens to us counts for little compared to how we react to what happens to us.
A priest and a parishioner saw a man starving, helpless man collapse by the roadway. Both looked up and prayed, "Oh, Lord! Don't you have any compassion on this innocent soul? Are you not going to do anything for hi?" Replied God, "I have seen him, I have-that's why I've sent you."

The Scripture says, "and we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." Romans 8: 28. Be encouraged.

*In the coming days, we will see how the 'bad' turned out to be good in the lives of those who loved God. So as to enable us face life with the hope that in His time He makes all things beautiful! Amen!