I have recently found myself wading through the murky waters of my own personal theology.  This is nothing new—confronting God with questions about the workings of the universe.  Certainly sharper minds than mine have tackled it and still attained some level of peace.

In actuality, I do have peace—but, I also still have questions—questions that may not be answered in this place.  That’s a rather hard pill to swallow, especially if you prefer life’s pills to be sugar coated.

I saw an article from New Orleans about someone whose house was damaged from the hurricane.  They were in the process of putting it back together when it was wiped out by a tornado.

There are hundreds—thousands of these stories that play themselves out every day.  Huge cosmic ironies begging for an explanation.  Bad things happening to good people and good things happening to bad.  We justify these events in two ways—either by denying that God exists or by saying that it all evens out in the end.  It makes us feel better to believe that life is random or in the end—it is at least fair.

I don’t believe either of these things are true.  The existence of God and the fairness of life are not mutually exclusive—thus, the concept of grace.

I have never asked ‘why me’ or ‘why Ali’.  I have always realized that this is a useless question with no answers.  The real question is ‘why anybody’, but that too is a question filled with futility.  It just is.  There is no such thing as ‘fair’ and I don’t have a problem with that.  Certainly, I do not deserve any special treatment, an immunity necklace or a get out of jail free card.

I wasn’t questioning God when I was living in a quarter million dollar house, driving my kids to the mall in a Navigator.  Four years later, I am the same person—yet, I have lost a child, I am divorced and severely in debt, I rent an apartment and it was a Honda Civic not a Navigator that was repossessed while I was shopping for my sister’s birthday present in TJ Maxx.

I’ve been in waiting rooms filled with bald-headed children of all ages.  I have lain on a hospital cot while in the next room a monitor goes off-- followed by a mother’s sobs.  I have heard a little boy screaming ‘don’t let me die’ because he was having an allergic reaction to a transfusion and his heart was beating out of his chest.  I have had to answer questions to which there were no answers for my own children and give them a reason why they must still hope, still trust and still believe.

I guess my real question is this—is all of this a test or is it just life?

Or, does it really matter?

I said that I was the same person who lived in a big house and drove a Navigator, but that is not true.  I am not the same at all and the cost has been immense.

What I have learned has been worth leaving all that was familiar, worth dealing with collection agencies and walking to work.  It was worth the humiliation of having to ask for help from those whose opinion mattered most to me and accept help from total strangers.  There is no lesson worth losing my daughter for—I’d be lying if I said there were.  But, I had no choice in the matter.

I do have a choice, however, in how I react to what happens to me.  For the past three years, every time I have seen a light at the end of the tunnel—it seems like God shuts it off.  Some days I feel that He has not only closed a door but put bars over the windows to taunt me.  There are times when I am so weary that even a smile seems more than I can muster.

These are the times when those lessons come in handy…those costly, costly lessons.  Perseverance means that you have made a choice to keep hoping, trusting and believing that something good will come of this day—that no matter what happens, you will pick up the pieces that are left and put them back together into something worthy of what you have lost.  In the end, life may not be fair and may not be right, but it is the only one you have.