One of the deeper questions we have during suffering is 'Why?' Why is this happening? What is this happening to me? What is wrong? What can I do about it? Why, God?
We live enculturated with the assumptions of cause-and-effect. So, we can hardly avoid our 'whys'. We almost require an explanation.
But, the answers to our deeper questions really come more from the question of 'who?'...than from the question of 'why?'
In other words, it is not really the answer to 'why' that satisfies us (even though we crave that answer)...because it only lasts until we are forced to ask it again. It is the answer to a different question that we really need, 'Who?'. Who is with me...during this time of suffering? Who am I? Who do I belong to? ...the answers to these 'who' questions satisfy. The Answer helps address our more human question of 'why?'.
This, by the way, is what so many people don't get about The Bible. They think, as I have so often thought, that it is supposed address our questions of 'why', particularly when we suffer. It doesn't. It wants to tell us Who is with us, especially in our suffering. ...a far different question, with a far different answer.
God doesn't offer us explanation for our pain nearly as much as he offers to be with us in it.
