To begin, let me state that I believe in God. Many of us do not but for the sake of argument let's say that he is real. Let's carry that a bit further and say that Heaven is real and that it truly is the most wondrous place one could imagine. There is no evil there; only good. There is no pain but instead an abundance of happiness and joy only and pleasures your human senses could not even begin to comprehend. Let's just pose a hypothetical for this purpose and assume all of the above to be true. Now, I am going to ask you a question. Do you think they were better off here on this fallen planet? Where do you think they would rather be if the above hypothetical were true?

My point is this: From our perspective this is a horrible, heart-wrenching atrocity committed by an evil or disturbed inividual (take your pick)that snuffed out the lives of many very young children who will never have a chance to live out their lives. That is all we see. We see only the bad, not the good that the hypothetical scenario shows which is ultimately better than anything this world could ever offer. We don't see this. God does. God could have prevented this. God could have prevented the holocaust. God could have prevented a baby from being born from cancer. So why doesn't God put a stop to all this?

Truthfully, this is a difficult question to answer and "It was God's will", the biggest cop-out excuse that any christian will offer when posed with these hard questions, is not an acceptable answer. It is probably the most common but it is also the most illegitimate response one could offer. I can tell you with 100% certainty that it was not God's will that a gunman mow down 20 or more innocent children but it happened. Our Father in heaven did not will this to happen. He did not want it to happen but yes, he allowed it to happen. He is not powerless to stop it. He will stop it. He will stop it when he sends his son Yeshua back to this earth to rule with a rod of iron and bring peace and prosperity to our planet. Why the long wait? Honestly, I don't know but if you are still living when he arrives within the next 6 years, you may get a chance to ask him. Until then, find solace in the fact that those children, along with the countless others that haved passed before them and those still to follow, are in a place of unimaginable beauty embraced in the very arms of love itself.