I am writing this with a very, very heavy heart. There is a woman that we knew in the church that we attended for many years whose granddaughter was murdered yesterday morning. What a horrible, horrible thing. Everywhere we saw the grandmother, we saw the granddaughter as she was growing up. They were very close, and my heart just hurts for her so much. I have been doing a lot of thinking today, and I wanted to share my thoughts on this.
  God is our father, Jesus is our betrothed, and they love us so incredibly much! So the conclusion that I have come to is this: God IS love, and He loves us beyond our understanding, and if we are saved, we are connected to Him with a connection that CANNOT be broken. The Bible says that we are seated with Him in heavenly places. That is possible because He is part of us and we are part of Him; we are connected, and as surely as we are here He is here with us, and as surely as He is there we are there with Him. Bad things happen because He has given us free will; we have a choice. He doesn't force us to do anything. Free will is a very good thing, but bad things happen because mankind has free will, Satan is working through people's choices, and we are born sinners.I know that God doesn't make bad things happen, people and Satan make bad things happen. I know that He loves us, and we have the promise that He will work all things together for good. I don't understand how good can come out of this situation, and I don't know that we will ever see the good or recognize it, but I do KNOW that good will come out of it, because He has told us this. We have a choice: we can trust Him and love Him, or we can blame Him and turn away from Him. I choose Him!
   Thanks for reading this; I hope it has been of some help to someone.