dear:

i think we try to think we have figured God out, or we like to think that we know his thoughts and plans. i think he probably laughs a little at that :)
we think we got Him figured out, how He likes to be loved, how He wants to be worshipped, what we should say and do to please Him. but in all reality i think we are so far from it, and we have no clue most of the times what His plans are or the reasons why some things happen.
and REALLY REALLY shitty things happen, and it makes us mad naturally as a defence, and it makes us doubt his goodness and his reality. and it makes us wonder if He really is worth following. and a great theologian :) once said "doubt is the ants in the pants of faith, if you are not doubting you are either kidding yourself or your asleep" and i think thats true, that if we are not doubting and questioning, than we are not learning enough and believing enough.
i question things too, when really bad stuff happens to people who do not deserve it (like your friend cody). i wonder what God's plan is, and i feel angry at him for not explaining himself better. but than i say to myself "how dare i ask the creator of the universe, of all life, and of me to explain Himself".....He owes me nothing, His grace is enough and i should expect no more than that.
I dont ever doubt God's existence, but I do struggle with understanding what and why certain things are happening.
I do not doubt God's existence because i see the world, and nature and cannot possibly believe it all happened by chance. I cannot believe that a world that spins perfectly on an axis was created by an explosion, I cannot believe that the fact that a women can create another human in her belly means nothing...I cannot look at the fine detail of how the world works and not think that someone not something was behind it all....and i think our yearning proves God's existence also....I read in a book once that the very fact that we search out more meaning in life, something more in life, proves God's existence. Because if God did not exist, we would not have been created to yearn for Him and for meaning. Whether people are christians or not, everyone seems to want "something more" from life...so clearly whoever created us placed that longing in us, and I do not think a big bang did that....so for those reasons I do not doubt his existence.
but on the dark days when really shitty things happen to people that should not have to go through such torment, I question what He is doing...and than I try very strongly to believe in His goodness, and believe in the God that saved my life, and believe that His plans and reasons are FAR more larger than my little sinful human brain can even endure...for I do believe He is good...and I believe His plans will come together in the end, in a way I cannot grasp...and it will be good.


i love you

-b