China's Plight

A HS.com friend who has family in China has recently responded in regards to the recent earthquake disaster:

"There are times when we are faced with certain disasters, even our maturing image of God could be shaken a bit, and whether we will remain to love God, depends on whether we still believe God is good, despite our feeling. An earthquake of Richter 7.8 may only appear to be a number; and the buildings collapsed are certainly a terrible scene to look at; sometimes, even the number of casualties and the number of those killed in the earthquake could become merely a statistic, if our hearts are desensitized enough...

When there are no more tears to shed, and the vocal cords are too tired to let out one more cry, what is left, is only a silent groan, heavy, because it bears all the pain of losing their precious beloved. We know we are in a war zone, and despite all the unspeakable pains caused by the horrendous disasters, God is infinitely good. Yet, will those who have lost their children, parents, spouse have the energy to hear such explanations and to reason it out? Their beloved is gone, that is what they know. Our compassion is a good thing, but it often brings us distress, because we suffer when we see even strangers suffer and we would want to turn away our eyes from those tragedies--it's too much."  The author is right, despite natural disasters,God is infinitely good. What we see transpiring be it fires, flood or earthquake -is not by God's punishing hand but rather the distinctive trademarks of a fallen world. "Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you-the Lord is your shade at you right hand. " Psalm 121:4,5