The "9/11 Plague"

Recent news reports have focused on the occurrence of persistent health problems that are continuing to develop among rescue workers present on 9/11. Hundreds have developed cancer they believe to be linked to ingesting pulverized cement, glass fibers and other toxic substances at Ground Zero. Others have died from scaring to the lungs, or suffered persistently from asthma and other respiratory conditions. Check out the article yourself at the following website . Now clearly, those men and women are heroes, in the strictest sense of the word. The fact that people across the world objectively measure certain things (such as murder or bravery) as good or bad traits is a proof in of itself of the existence of God. But this issue has brought back the age old question to many of "How could a good God exist and yet allow all the pain and suffering in this world?"

Obviously there is pain and suffering in this world. One cannot deny it. One of my best friends was just diagnosed with type one diabetes. My mom has lost sight in one eye due to high blood pressure. One of my grandmothers is in a nursing home due to failing health. The other grandmother isn't fairing much better either. And I've got scores of cousins, aunts, and uncles, suffering from cancer and a number of other maladies. I'm not saying this to get a pity party. But simply to establish that I'm not someone who has lived in a glass house utopia and never personally experienced pain and suffering. I have. But the Lord is gracious and He is in control.

Now intellectuals have struggled with this issue for centuries. Ironically, often the people suffering don't have a problem with accepting God and their suffering. It is often those in far more comfortable positions in life. I'm not going to claim to be a voice in the desert that has all the answers perfectly or that I figured this all out on my own. But I do have to say this: God's plan is far bigger than you or I can fathom. If you think hard enough, you can probably find something in your life that seemed bad at the time and yet now you have come to be thankful that it happened. Even if you can't see how it may be a good thing though, that doesn't mean it isn't in His eternal plan. Let me give you the following simplistic example from The Case for Faith, an excellent book by Lee Strobel that tackles the most common intellectual problems for people in accepting Christ:

"Would you agree that the difference between us and God is greater than the difference between us and, say, a bear."
I nodded.
"Okay, then, imagine a bear in a trap and a hunter who, out of sympathy, wants to liberate him. He tries to win the bear's confidence, but he can't do it, so he has to shoot the bear full of drugs. The bear, however, thinks this is an attack and that the hunter is trying to kill him. He doesn't realize that this is being done out of compassion.
"Then, in order to get the bear out of the trap, the hunter has to push him further into the trap to release the tension on the spring. If the bear were semiconscious at that point, he would be even more convinced that the hunter was his enemy who was out to cause him suffering and pain. But the bear would be wrong. He reaches this incorrect conclusion because he's not a human being....
"Now... can anyone be certain that's not an analogy between us and God? I believe God does the same to us sometimes, and we can't comprehend why he does it any more than the bear can understand the motivations of the hunter. As the bear could have trusted the hunter, so we can trust God.

There is a lot more to that issue in that book and has also been addressed by C. S. Lewis in "The Problem with Pain." This website address, given to me by a friend, is also an excellent and well researched answer to that problem filled with scripture.

If you are struggling with that issue, even though I'm sure I didn't answer your concern as fully as you require, take hope, the answers are out there. And ultimately, the biggest proof is the fact that God exists, as creation absolutely attests. Just as a painting needs a painter, clearly the sunset does as well. And since God does exist, then clearly He has a reason for everything under His Sovereignty. And that's enough for me.