Grandson questioning god

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My granddaughter was diagnosed with Leukemia at the age of 20, she turned 21 in March and is now in remission. Her 17 year old brother asked me why did God give his sister Leukemia and I did not know how to answer him. I told him that God does not give people diseases but feel I need to elaborate more on this. Any suggestions as how I can explain it to him? He seems to be asking a lot of questions about God lately. Like why do bad things happen to good people?
 
:console: Oh, I am so sorry to hear about your granddaughter - and I wish I had something wise to suggest for you to say to your grandson, but I’ll leave that to the more knowledgable around here. All my explanations for the mysteries of God sound far too trite in the case of a loved one with cancer. He is definitely at an age where the spirtual questioning comes to the surface - which is good and better still that he has you to come to ask these hard questions. I had no one to ask at that age and that was a terrible thing. I am sure you are a good example of faith and that is a help in and of itself.
Blessings to you, your grandaughter and your family.
 
You might suggest he read “The Problem of Pain” by C.S.Lewis. He has no real answers for the mystery of pain and illness, but he discusses the issue in depth.
What works for me is to remember that Jesus is with me in any pain or grief I experience. The answer, of course, is to look at Christ on the cross. God is not aloof from our pain, he is right there in it with us, even if we can’t know the reasons for it.
Praying for your granddaughter. I’m glad she’s in remission.
 
Thank you both for responsing to my question. That is exactly what I am going to tell him. Why didn’t I think of that? God gave up is only son, and the pain that he endured was horrific. That is a very good analogy…

Thank you so much…
 
I think it’s important to remember that life on earth is SO TEMPORARY. Due to original sin, it’s not always a great place to be. Life isn’t fair. Bad things happen to good people. It’s the price we pay for our Original Parents, aka Adam and Eve, abusing their gift of free will. But in the next life, bad things will NOT happen to good people, aka those who trusted in God and followed His will on earth. Eternity last for a heck of a lot longer than life on earth. And they will be rewarded for all the struggles they endured, in heaven. God will make everything fair in the end. 👍
 
Lewis did great work on pain, loss and suffering. Another I’d suggest is Fr. Benedict Groeschel.

One more, the author’s name escapes me now, but the book is called “The Fulfillment of All Desire” - it takes the writings of the great Doctors of the Church
 
rjuanes said:
My granddaughter was diagnosed with Leukemia at the age of 20, she turned 21 in March and is now in remission. Her 17 year old brother asked me why did God give his sister Leukemia and I did not know how to answer him. I told him that God does not give people diseases but feel I need to elaborate more on this. Any suggestions as how I can explain it to him? He seems to be asking a lot of questions about God lately. Like why do bad things happen to good people?
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Don’t know if you have read anything by Peter Kreeft, but I LOVE his writing, and he ddoes some great commentaries on the writing on C.S. Lewis - if you go to www.peterkreeft.com you can download lectures for free, and they are the basis of many of his books - there is a commentary on the Problem of Pain, and there is also another lecture about C.S Lewis losing his wife (this is one of my favorites)… I would highly recommend them!

God bless,

chris
 
If it helps at all I went through a similar questioning at a similar age (I was 18) a friend had a baby born with a severe defect that meant it could not live (a condition called anencephaly you can look it up in any search engine). At the time I was on the other side of the world to all my usual support network and had to get through this trial on my own but after a while I learned to accept that God’s mind does not work the same way as ours and we do not understand his workings but we have to believe that he loves us and our suffering is not in vain I came out of that experience with a stronger faith than I had felt before. I found it helped to put my thoughts and feelings into a journal (though I’ve never kept one before or since) and it really helped me to put them into words and get them out of my head (where they were just playing on loop). I don’t know whether talking to people would have had the same effect, but I didn’t really have anybody to confide in except one friend who was traveling with me, but she was probably more traumatised by our friend’s loss than I was (they were very close) and I didn’t want to add my feelings to her burden.
So, in short, don’t despair, who knows what may come of this tragedy.
 
rjuanes said:
My granddaughter was diagnosed with Leukemia at the age of 20, she turned 21 in March and is now in remission. Her 17 year old brother asked me why did God give his sister Leukemia and I did not know how to answer him. I told him that God does not give people diseases but feel I need to elaborate more on this. Any suggestions as how I can explain it to him? He seems to be asking a lot of questions about God lately. Like why do bad things happen to good people?
Click to expand...
Because God loves them, say, Jesus and the Jews. The people God loves the most suffer the most because he will dicipline them more thoroughly. If God really loves you, he’ll make your trials in this world painfully obvious. Whereas, most are cursed to suffer internally, say, Mother Teresa.
 
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