Who knows why it happened?

The Book of Job used to not make sense to me. I tried to read it a couple of times, but just couldn't get "into" it.

The month my mother died, I read it through and understood it, and it comforted me.

When something like this happens, we ask, Why? And someone will say, "God knows," a sort of verbal shrug.

The Book of Job is the answer to "Why?" And the answer truly is, God knows.

God knows what the young man was thinking. God knows the crazed and twisted thoughts in his mind.

God knows the pain he inflicted. The terror.

God knows each sorrowing heart left in the wake of the tragedy ... those who are still in a daze of shock, barely able to comprehend that their child will not be with them, here on earth, any more.

Those who watch by hospital beds and feel tempted to guilt for their relief that their dear one is alive, though wounded - God knows all they feel.

God knows. There is nothing He cannot know about this horrible tragedy.

And, as I learned to do while my mother was dying, there is one way to deal with it: to sit before God, and tell Him how much it hurts, and why.

In speaking (crying, wailing) to Him about it, you will learn, and He will comfort you.

Because He knows.

He knows the name of the one you lost; He created that one out of His thought, planned for that one from time out of mind. He knows where that one is at this moment, and His love for that dear one you cry for has never ended, and never will - any more than yours has.

I do not believe God plans these horrors. I do trust Him to know about them... to know what I cannot know.

I trust Him to stand watch over those who mourn and grieve and worry because of what happened at Virginia Tech. I believe He waits to receive anyone who turns to Him in its wake, even if they only rail at Him for allowing such a senseless crime.

At least they are talking to Him.

Like any parent, He can stand it. Tell Him how you feel. He knows, of course, already; He knows you that well. But you must know the truth ... and the only way you will find out is to talk with Him, and tell Him where it hurts.

Let Him comfort you.

While it can never be His will to hurt the ones he loves - which is all of us - it is always His will to bind up our wounds, to listen to us tell Him over and over again how it was and how it is, and to hold us close while we cry.

My heart goes out to anyone who knows what the Book of Job is about. I am grateful to God that it is there. It comforted me and taught me to turn to God when I don't know why.

God knows.