Why?

There is a special young lady, whose name I won't mention, that we have known since she was in elementary school. In fact we used to teach her when we taught the children at Pinebrook. We've watched her over the years grow into a young, talented Christian women. A few years ago she married a fine Christian young man and they both felt called to serve on the mission field. And for the past few years they have been serving in a project to reach unreached tribes in Tanzania. In time she became pregnant and they were surprised to find out that she was carrying twins. Unfortunately, complications developed and since there were no specialists available in Tanzania, she and her husband made an emergency trip back to the states. There they found out that her situation with the twins was extremely rare and critical. For twins the egg usually splits in much less than ten days. If they go ten days or longer, they are usually conjoined. Her twins apparently split on the ninth day leaving them with separate cords but nothing to separate them in the womb. The danger is that they will become entangled and strangle each other's cords. So she is now hospitalized so that they can monitor the situation and rush her into surgery if the problem develops. Recent pictures show they are entwined but not presently cutting of their supplies. Ideally they would like to get to 32 weeks (five weeks to go) to give the twins the best chance for survival. But, without a miracle, they will probably need to take them sooner. In situations like this they have a 50% chance of survival. We are praying with them that the Lord will perform the miracles needed. But in a situation like this, our question is usually "Why?". Why would God allow this to happen to a young couple who have dedicated their lives to reaching the unreached with the Gospel? There are so few young people who would respond to such a call. I've asked this question so often lately as we've watched a number of our Christian friends lose a spouse, as we now watch two Christian friends facing serious cancer situations, as we watch a 14 year old in a coma with a malignant brain tumor, and as we watch another friend go through very deep waters. And the age old question remains, "Why does God allow good people to face such challenges?" And there are many possible answers but they often seem to fall so short when one is in the midst of the stressful situation. And, in most cases we will never know God's reason or purposes, at least while we are here on earth. So all we can do is to trust God's heart and believe that He is in control. In fact, yesterday, while I was again pondering this question, I heard a well known pastor say that the most important lesson he had to learn in his life was that God was in control and that he wasn't. So we must just learn to live one day at a time, knowing that God is always good, even when we can't see His plan.