What's the point of it all?

What's the point of all the pain, suffering, anguish, and tears?

Yesterday I looked into the eyes of a woman coming to terms with the fact that she is dying, and my heart echoed the pain that I saw there.

Why could we not live a life free from pain and suffering?

A life where mothers lived forever, daddies never left their families, the good guys always win, children never have to pay the price of their parents mistakes, and hearts are never broken.  A life free from heartache.  One in which we know no evil.

This is the question that I find myself sometimes asking after tough days.  Days when I see babies wasting away because their mommy ran away and left them.  Days when grandmothers with tears in their eyes tell of watching their grandchildren die.  Staring into the eyes of a friend held captive by alcohol.  Listening to my friend's pain making its way down her cheeks, as she realizes that the one time she gave into temptation with her boyfriend means she will now be becoming a mother; less than a week after being forced to say a final goodbye to her own mother.  Days when I find it that my mother is now fighting two separate types of cancer.  When I find out about how, just a few days ago, two schoolchildren walking by someone's garden decided to eat a few mangos....and how the price they paid for that decision was their lives, as the man to whom the mangos belonged decided to take the law into his own hands.  And how the schoolchildren's families retaliated by taking the lives of three more children belonging to the man.  FIVE innocent children.  My heart breaks for each one of them.

I find myself on my knees, asking the only One who has the true answers to all my questions one single thing - "Why?"

And the answer is always so glaringly simple. 

"It's because of me, my beloved."

Because it's those hard times that force me to my knees, crying in pain and anguish, begging for help. 

Because without it, I fear that I would live a happy and carefree life in which I would never realize my need for a Heavenly Father. 

Because I would go laughing to my doom. 

I'm not perfect.   I still forget sometimes.  But I'm learning.

I'm learning to turn my face up into the rain when it pours down, and praise the maker of the rain.  To see the beauty of the storm, when viewed through the right eyes.

To hear the love song in the downpour.

Just me,

Kindra