It is so easy right now to ask, "Why is this happening God?" 

A wise man once said:  "God is too good to be unkind, and He is too wise to be mistaken.

And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.” 

Even though I think I know God's heart, I sometimes feel like Tevye, the poor Jewish milkman, from Fiddler on the Roof when he speaks aloud to the Lord:  “I know, I know—we are the chosen people. But once in a while, can’t You choose someone else?”

Perhaps God allows suffering as part of His creation because we would not recognize good without the contrast of bad. There may be some strange plan in all of it.  We might need the absence of joy to know it when we experience it. 

In Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov," Ivan, the brilliant agnostic, and his devout brother Alyosha are discussing why there is evil.  Ivan can analyze humankind's failures and critique every political system designed to deal with those failures, but he can offer no solutions.  Alyosha has no answers to Ivan's intellectual problems, but he has a solution for humanity: love.  "I do not know the answer to the problem of evil," said Alyosha, "but I do know love."

The answer to the pain of the world is ... love.  

During these challenging times, let's all follow the advice of our great Mark Twain: 

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”  

Love someone today ... especially if they need some cheering up.