.......my thoughts are that these things happen to test one's faith. Tough to see things like this happen and I don't know how I would handle a scenario like this if were to happen in my family.
Losing a child to death is likely the most absolutely awful thing that this life has to offer. I can’t imagine experiencing anything worse in this life. Especially in a sudden and horrific way as described in the OP and elsewhere on this thread. I can grasp ‘why’ these bad things happen...as difficult and unfair as it is...but I can’t grasp a ‘purpose’ for them happening. There was a time where Peter had been arrested multiple times and was living as a fugitive, he was on the run and there was a price on his head. He’d been flogged, he was scarred for life, Stephen had been stoned to death, James (brother of John) had been executed, the Apostles were all scattered...and God did nothing to stop it. Yet Peter wrote, “In His great mercy He has given us a new birth...” a different kind of relationship with God...”He’s given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. In other words, our prayers may not all get answered, and we may never understand the randomness and tragedies of life...but we do have hope...and our hope isn’t anchored to theology, and it isn’t anchored to a book. Peter says that our hope is anchored to an event, an event that rekindled his hope, the resurrection of Jesus. He saw the best possible person suffer the worst possible death, it made no sense at all, none. And God brought Him back to life. So while there was probably a lot that Peter couldn’t explain and a lot that he couldn’t understand...after witnessing the resurrection...he continued to believe and persevere, not ‘because of’ the tragedies and tribulations, but ‘in spite of’ them. In spite of the bad that we see around us, and in spite of the bad that’s happening to us and those we love...we can still have hope, and we can still receive grace to help us in our time of need...even though we don’t have explanations. Peter assures us that our hope is not misplaced, he assures us that our hope is not in vain. Our living hope is anchored...not to our ability to understand and interpret bad or awful or tragic circumstances...but to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
