Why Does God Allow Pain and Suffering to Exist?

Walking into Prem Dan (a long-term convalescent facility run by the Missionaries of Charity) is like diving into a pool of clear, cool water in the middle of a summer day in Phoenix.  On one side of the gate is a chaotic dirt street strewn with garbage, honking rickshaws, and clouds of flies.  On the other is a peaceful and spotlessly clean oasis with little Indian nuns smiling while they quietly attend to their chores and patients.  The life of a handicapped poor person in Kolkata is pure misery, consisting of begging on the sidewalk to other poor people at best and a slow death due to neglect at worst.  Prem Dan provides food, shelter, love, and care for those with no options in life. 

Prem Dan from behind (the blue building)

Four hours into my first day volunteering at Prem Dan I knelt on my knees under the shade of an awning and slowly fed an aged crippled man his lunch of rice and greens.  As I held the spoon and waited for him between bites I thought about what an incredible privilege it is for me to have this opportunity to help change lives.  Here is a loving facility already in place with the neediest people already found and admitted, daily routines already set, supplies already bought, and management already in control.  All I have to do is show up and I get to provide a basic need for someone who has intrinsic and complete dependence on someone else for even just survival.  This is a man who regardless of initiative, willpower, or hard work simply has no way to care for himself, who without someone’s help would die in just a couple days.  And this man isn’t unimportant.  He has just as much value as Barack Obama or the Pope or my mom or Jesus.  And here I am totally unskilled but willing to offer just a little bit of my time to sit and lift some rice and greens to his mouth and give him a side-hug and just as simple as that, I have relieved a little bit of his suffering and changed his life, even if only by a very small amount.

Maybe that’s why pain and suffering exist.  Maybe it’s not a cruel necessity of life, but an opportunity for someone to find fulfillment and joy through service and love.  Instead of looking at the suffering of someone less fortunate and seeing it as the inevitable curse of life or a lapse of God’s goodness, maybe we should look at the suffering of someone less fortunate and see it as an opportunity to love and be blessed, an opportunity to relieve that suffering.  If it is really better to give than to receive then someone else’s dependency on you is a blessing; and if everyone who was able was consistently helping to relieve suffering then I suppose suffering would no longer exist.  We would be left with only inter-dependence and a whole lot of love.

Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed inside Prem Dan, but here is a picture of a man making our lunch yesterday - "egg rolls"

The Bible says pure and undefiled religion is to visit people who have no one else in their affliction and that someday everybody who has ever lived is going to be gathered together and Jesus will say to some, “Come you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”  Now, if these blessings were prepared from the foundation of the world, it means God knew there would be hungry, thirsty, dependent people before Adam ever bit into that Gala apple, but that He planned it that way for the benefit of all.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not proposing that the fall of man plays no part in suffering, or that sin isn’t cause for some, if not all, pain; I am only trying to say that overall in the big picture maybe the reason God purposefully created a world that contains the potential for pain and suffering is because it allows more potential for love and blessing to exist, and that on a practical, day to day level we need to stop letting the pain and suffering of others become a reason to doubt the goodness of life or God and instead let it become the incredible opportunity that it is to receive blessing and experience love. It may sound idealistic but that is the opportunity I am offered constantly here in Kolkata and the reality I experienced yesterday as I knelt on the concrete floor in the sweltering heat and smiled at the grunt of gratitude from the elderly homeless man for my simple help with his lunch.