Amy Beth was out in her neighborhood taking her dog for a walk when she saw a young man run into a nearby alley. A car followed. The young man grabbed a huge piece of wood from a dumpster and started swinging at the car. Amy Beth froze. She was caught in a gang fight.

Suddenly, the young driver of the car tried to get away by accelerating backwards. He slammed into Amy Beth. She landed on the trunk and was thrown into the street. Amazingly, she wasn’t seriously hurt.

Later, she tried to make sense of her experience and attempted to turn it around to make it seem good. She came to this conclusion: “Bad things happen—tragic and horrible things. Good things happen—amazing and miraculous things. And all this happens randomly to us. But it is not random to the God who cradles our aching hearts. He knows. . . . Suffering will come. But God is . . . larger than the events that seem to contradict God’s goodness.”

We will experience sickness, accidents, sorrow, and death. But we are not on our own. God is in control. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (Ps. 34:19). We can be confident that one day we will be safe with Him forever.  — Anne Cetas