We are learning to be human.

A question that skeptics and believers alike pose: "Why is there suffering in the world if it is in the hands of an all-powerful God?"
We have a tendency to search for something beyond what we can see to answer this question and other questions we have. We have a hunger that causes us to acknowledge a greater force in our lives, because things are so out of control, and it is impossible for us to understand what is going on around us. We are lost.
We know to the depth of our being that there is something or someone that is beyond our grasp. Things don't make sense and, while we understand that everything cannot not remain whole because the world is broken and we are confused, at the same time our desire is for peace and justice; for the system that we live in to be fair. We are desperate for wholeness, for things to be clear, and for the world to be a more reasonable place to live.
We cannot attain this in our own power. We can find ourselves at a place where our achievements allow us to rest in this world. It would be dishonest to say that most of us are not striving for this place of arrival.
But our quest for self-improvement and to better our life situation cannot be reconciled with the rest of the world. The sufferings of others cannot be ignored, no matter where you find yourself in this quest for happiness that is life. Sadness, poverty and disease are close to you, if you have not found them in your own heart. We cannot get away from them. It does not matter how far we remove ourselves from their physical presence.
Could it be that wealth, fame, and the pursuit of perfection are human attempts to avoid the unavoidable? There are people that are poor, forgetten, and crushed.
When we love others and act upon those opportunites for forgiveness, when we choose to have mercy and understanding instead of ignorance and neglectfulness; then we answer the sinner's prayer for grace. As the redeemed, we become the redemption that humankind had sought after forever.
There is suffering because we are Christ's vessels. There is suffering because it is our responsibility to be light. There is suffering because now we take the blood that was shed for us and we sacrifice for others in the same way we have recieved a sacrifice.
The beauty of our nature is found when we extend beyond our own trials and we discover joy.