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Last week I got an email from a young guy I worked with in Sacramento. His family has been going through their own version of hell as their precious 4 year son’s kidneys failed due to a genetic disorder. Little Josh received and rejected a kidney in September. Then his antibodies rose to a prohibitive level, making it practically impossible to get another transplant. Miraculously his mom was a match and donated one of her kidneys in mid-December. They are far from out of the woods but things are finally looking up for this beautiful young family. I sent an email checking on them and my friend included the following comment in his response to me.

“Among other things, we have both had occasion to ponder the still-unsolved problem of why bad things happen to innocent people, and to wonder why we should be grateful to God for good things but somehow not blame Him for bad things. I confess I wrestle with those questions every day.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I have been wrestling with that same conundrum for 30 months. I confess I don’t pray much anymore. I was a faithful pray-er for almost 50 years but I have now decided it doesn’t matter whether you pray or not – what will be, will be. I still talk to God occasionally but rarely do I ask him to intercede anymore.

Last year I kept a “suffering journal” in which I wrote the names of everyone who died that touched my life in some way. Think Kevin Bacon’s 6 degrees of separation. I didn’t know all the people personally – some were famous; some died in a very public tragedy; some were friends of friends but they were all significant in my life in some way. Some were very special to me – an uncle, a good friend, a high school friend. Some have become special to me after their deaths since I have become friends with their mothers. The list was pages long. There is no end to the suffering in this world if you are paying attention.

So now here we are in a new year – a clean slate – and my 2010 suffering journal is already filling up. 12 year old Ian who died in a car wreck in our old suburban Dallas neighborhood; all those poor people in Haiti; the biologists whose helicopter crashed in the Sierras; the 20 year old who was shot in Ceres. The list grows daily.

Those of us who have been “on the list” have a deeper understanding of the pain profound loss brings and a greater compassion for those who endure it. Maybe we’re like the Velveteen Rabbit – it takes having our fur worn off before we become “real”.