A bit over three weeks ago, as I sat bedside with my mother-in-law who was battling her end days with cancer, emphysema and heart failure, I was asking these questions:

It’s in times like these that one’s beliefs are challenged. Why must she suffer so? Why does God allow this to happen? Why not allow assisted suicide to folks that have no hope of survival, not much time left, and are in agony? Good questions all, and I am at a loss for any good answers, except for the belief that our Lord has a purpose for his children, and that there are lessons for us to learn[.]

I can hear that heavenly reprimand echoing in my mind, “Oh ye of little faith,” especially after reading through Elizabeth Scalia’s A Tsunami Cannot Be Drawn in Pastels: On Dignity and Suffering posted at InsideCatholic.com. I had read her posts in real time that first half year of my blogging, as she and her family watched and dealt with the loss of her dear brother to cancer. I thought that I was moved at the time, having lost my own mother just two years before, however nothing I felt then prepared me for what I encountered during this reading, having lost my wife’s mother just a few short weeks ago.

She harpoons my question, “Why does God allow this to happen?”, by explaining that without sorrow there is no joy, without loss, there is no appreciation, without extreme hardship, there is no personal growth — it is as it ever was. How foolish the collective “we” have all become; “We” only want to live our lives from cradle to grave with as little challenge and impediments as possible, constantly in a state of middling euphoria, with never a pain or a loss seemingly too great to bear — can’t have ourselves being put to that test, mind you . . .

It would do no justice to excerpt this important read, so just go and read it all. If you would like to read more from her, then do so here.

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