This is a hard question – but it’s a hard question for everybody, whether you have a faith or not. Even the atheist struggles with “the problem of evil” in this world.

As Christians we say a couple of things – but not everything – about the problem of evil: In Jesus we see God who came among us, suffered as we do, and ultimately died an unjust death. He did that because He loves us. So one thing we can always say is that God knows what we are going through and that He loves us.

Because Jesus rose from the dead, we believe in renewal for all things. There will come a time when, as Sam Gamgee discovers in the Lord of the Rings, “everything sad is going to come untrue”. These thoughts don’t explain everything wrapped up in a nice box with a ribbon, but they are hints that help us make it through the darkest of times.