"If God loves us, why did he make bipolar?"

Struck tonight by a conversation with one of the girls that I work with. Let me give you a backdrop: I'm working at a residential rehab home that houses teen girls who have trauma, mental health instability, and have suffered severe abuse in previous living situations. Since I'm merely a residential assistant, my shifts are usually pretty mundane... but upon finding out one of the girls is decidedly Christian and desires to learn more about her faith, I make it priority to put this sweet soul to bed each night in order to have the opportunity to pray and talk about anything God-related - and this way we avoid the chagrin of other staff and residents.

The conversations are always awesome. i.e. She loves to remind me, "when I reincarnate, I want to be a cheetah". And when I remind her that Christians don't believe in reincarnation, she assures me that it's in the bible. And after looking it up, we decide that she's thinking of Jesus's resurrection. Which of course brings on a whole new topic and we get to talk about the gospel, God's love, being born again, how Jesus can be God and God's son at the same time, how there is no more crying in heaven, streets paved with gold, etc. Imagine accepting the gospel and having little to no discipleship, church, or fellow believers, all while knowing that you are a Christian. The simple conversations we have are always chock-full of sweet questions that I get the privilege of answering :)

One particular question comes up frequently... you know, the question of God's love when there is evil in the world. Of course these questions come in hypothetical format: "what about an 8 year old who was abused by someone? How does God love her?"; "if God is so good why doesn't he come down from heaven and stop the bad things right away?"; "If God loves us, why did he make people bipolar?"; "why does God allow bad people to live? I think they should all die forever!" and on and on and on. These questions stop me every time. I don't know what it's like to be molested by a family member, I don't know what it's like to be starved of food or beaten by your mother, I don't know what it's like to be locked in a room for days on end suffering verbal and emotional abuse, I don't know what it's like to be taken from your parents or to have never met them, I don't know what it's like to have your father die of drug overdose, I don't know what it's like to suffer from a severe mental disorder, I don't know what it's like to have an alcoholic parent who "professes" Jesus every Sunday (sidenote: not all of these scenarios are hers). And yet I sit there and tell her how much God loves her. Which is so so true!! But to have the role of sharing with her a loving God amidst a broken, evil world... to attempt to explain suffering when there isn't any black and white answer... I pray my words are driven by the Holy Spirit because Lord, I don't know how to answer questions that I don't fully understand. But I ask that you give her your Spirit of Understanding - that she would grasp how high and how deep and how wide your love is and rest in that truth. That her faith would rest in you and you alone. Keep your hand on her - show her your love, show her your goodness. Amen and Amen.