Thriving...in Spite of It

I work with a group of teenage girls on a weekly basis in a minstry called The Ladies of Honor, and we recently gave them an opportunity to submit random questions for discussion.  One of them was "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Bad things happen at work.  Bad things happen to families.  Bad things happen to communities.  The truth of the matter is, bad things just happen. In the course of trying to sort out my mother's untimely death, I found myself bombarded with this question, from the inside, and the outside.  It's too easy to say we just can't question God, and we know this by reading the book of Job, but I did find some consolation there.  Job 37:23 says "Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice: he will not afflict.." We cannot find him out. Years ago, my cousin lost her beautiful baby girl to crib death.  Trying to console her as she questioned why, I c