Article November 23, 1992 Issue

Peaches from pine trees?

If the world seems cold and cruel, a deeper understanding of the allness of divine Love can give us the healing answers we need.

Judith Hardy Olson

To someone wanting to believe that God is almighty and only good, instances of bad things happening to good people can pose a real dilemma. Since there's no way evil can be attributed to an all-good God, "something's gotta give."

Some years ago I was in the midst of just such mental turmoil. I valued what I'd learned about God from the Bible as a child—that He's infinite Love. This line from a hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal had always been a favorite: "The loveliness of Love is all around."

After I'd grown up and left home, however, the "loveliness of Love" didn't seem to be so evident. Soon I was overwhelmed by a "cold, cruel world." Why, in one week a tornado wiped out a whole block of homes nearby; our mailman, a father of eight, was killed by a train; in the apartment upstairs, domestic violence often broke out; a power struggle in my husband's office continued unresolved; and I became very aware of a war and famine causing much suffering in another part of the world. There I was yearning to know that God is All, and to be able to teach this to our two children. But in the face of all the tragedy and turmoil, this seemed a head-in-the-clouds approach to everyday life.

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