Faith heals, but can't answer 'Why?' (Charley)

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- It isn't among the first questions you ask after a disaster bulldozes your life; it comes after, ''Are my loved ones safe?'' ''How bad is the damage?'' and ''Is help on the way?''

Why, one asks, did this catastrophe happen to me? Hurricane Charley didn't have to stomp on Charlotte County like a celestial boot, prying off roofs, uprooting trees, smashing windows and gouging out homes as if with a cosmic trowel -- but it did. What, one asks, did I do to deserve having my life turned to rubble?

My views on God and faith are complex; suffice it to say that I believe it's just as impossible to prove God exists as to prove he doesn't. The universe, as I regard it, just is; it doesn't have intent. ''Why'' doesn't always have an answer. Stuff happens; sometimes we're just in the way.

Faith, in a way, makes it harder to understand the maddening capriciousness of natural disasters, or even man-made cataclysms like wars and terrorist attacks. Why would an omnipotent God do this to someone?

Kc ''Kasey'' Kopaska of Springfield, Mo., asked himself that question 28 years ago, when his Jeep crashed and caught fire, leaving him with third-degree burns over 60 percent of his body. The driver, his friend, died after a couple of weeks; Kopaska, then 17, beat the odds and lived.

But not easily. The accident turned Kopaska's face into a mask of burn-scar tissue. What remains of his hands are lumpy nubs -- the accident claimed all 10 of his fingers.

'I remember sitting up nights and saying, 'God, what did I do that you would do this to me?' '' Kopaska told me Monday. ''I tried to cope the way I always did -- I got back into booze and drugs, to the point where I didn't want to live anymore.''

I met Kc -- that's his proper name -- Monday at a supplies-distribution point set up in a gas station on Highway 41 in Punta Gorda, Fla., by the faith-based relief agency Convoy of Hope, for whom he serves as director of U.S. disaster response operations. He was coordinating the distribution of eight tractor-trailer loads of free food and supplies, including some 35 tons of drinking water.

Kopaska today is a walking vision of hope and rebirth. Faith saved him; five years after his crash, he found a church congregation who ''wanted to be there.''

''To work through the process of finding hope again, inspiration, that can be a little tough,'' he said. ''That's one reason I do this. My face and hands tell them that this disaster doesn't have to be the last chapter of their lives.''

At one point, our conversation was punctuated by a most incongruous sound: Laughter. Hearty laughter, that rolled across the somber parking lot like a cool breeze.

Connie Church had stopped by to see if she could volunteer. That didn't seem so remarkable, until I had a chance to see what was left of the two houses she and her husband Wayne own across the bay in Port Charlotte.

The family room looked like a patio -- there was nothing above it but sky. Only two exterior windows remained. The front door was still there, but half of its frame had been blown away.

''I was in the closet, and I swear to God it was a tornado,'' Church recalled. 'I heard the 'freight train.' I looked up and the roof flew off the house.''

Yet despite her losses, Church -- who admitted to crying every morning since the storm -- wanted to help others, concluding, using remarkable calculus, others were worse off than she.

Maybe faith shouldn't try to explain random events -- because no logical construction of God, faith or religion can truly explain a Hurricane Charley. Maybe what faith does best is help people cope, recover and rise again after a capricious universe knocks them down.

''The people that do more than survive are the ones who learn to assimilate [a crisis] into the overall experience of life,'' Kopaska said. ''If people find purpose in it, they're going to heal. If they don't, they're going to be traumatized for the rest of their lives.''

People receive information from volunteer Jacqui Krouze (R) at a mobile home park in Windmill Village in Punta Gorda, Florida, August 16, 2004. The park was destroyed by hurricane Charley August 13. Relief supplies poured rapidly into southwest Florida after Hurricane Charley's devastating punch but some of the thousands of newly homeless on Monday were frustrated as they faced rebuilding their lives. REUTERS/Marc Serota

What a stupid writer....Faith has nothing to do with what happens to us ( merely read the book of Job to understand that point) Faith has to do with our contiued belief in God inspite of our circumstance...What a loon obviously this writer has never sat for more than a moment and contemplated their relationship to the Almighty

Faith has to do with our contiued belief in God inspite of our circumstance

I don't know. I know of a guy who had some real bad family problems. His brothers hated him and made life difficult for him. Even kicked him out of the house.

He ended up in prison but got out and made something of his life. He confronted his brothers years later and said that he knew they messed him over, but that God had a plan.

Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God:

Joseph was a diviner (Gen. 44:15)

He could interpret dreams (Gen. 40:8)

So he could see things in God's will others could not. His faith allowed him to see God's hand in his suffering.

So some suffering comes at God's hand. Faith enables us to endure by knowing that God sometimes has a purpose in it.

On the other hand, some suffering is random chance.

Luke 13, Jesus talks about people who had suffered. Many believed they had done something worthy of suffering. Jesus said they had not. It was chance. Then he said that unless they all (i.e., we all) stop sinning, we shall all perish. (Vv. 3,5)

I read a book once where the author pointed out that the only way we know whether such things are deliberate or chance will be in hindsight. One thing we do know, however, is that, "we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." (Rom 8:28)

Great post.

The story of Joseph is one I read repeatedly to my children. What Man means for Evil, God means for Good.

You covered the subject well.

I took a hint from the previous poster and read your "about me" page.

What a hoot!

Gotta say I agree with you about Terry Bradshaw (Don't know about football, but he is the sexist man on TV cause he's so funny), Stephen Ambrose and his book on Crazy Horse/Custer, and California where I lived for over 25 years.

But your mention of Joseph only proves further my point...It is NOT our outward circumstance that determines our faith...Paul tells what faith is and not once does he say anything about circumstance being the indicator. Faith and belief have to do with one's relationship with God REGARDLESS of circumstance...that was my point

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