Answering the Unanswerable

How do you answer hard questions?

Questions like “why did this incredible person get diagnosed with cancer?” or “why did this person die so young?”

Questions like “why are thousands of people dying of starvation?” or “why was there another school shooting?”

Questions like “how could a loving God allow this to happen?” or “is there even a god?”

How do you answer hard questions when every answer seems like an oversimplification?

How do you answer hard questions when every answer has some sort of hole in the logic and just doesn’t quite add up?

How do you answer hard questions when there seem to be no answers?

Perhaps you answer the unanswerable by simply admitting there is no answer.

Perhaps you allow yourself to reckon with doubt, pain, and turmoil in this place of uncertainty.

Perhaps you answer the unanswerable by asking a new question, a question with an answer: how do I respond to this?

You cannot bring the dead back to life, but you can love the ones you have with more intention, more passion.

You cannot eliminate world hunger in one day, but you can actively work towards it by helping one person at a time.

You cannot prove that there is a god, but you can devote yourself to living in such a way that brings more goodness and more light to a dark world.

For it is often in the darkness where you find great light.

It is often in the doubt where you find resilient hope.

It is often in the pain where you find full healing.

So do not run from the darkness, the doubt, the pain.

Do not settle for oversimplified answers when they do nothing for you.

Do not buy the falsified logic only to bury your turmoil deep within you.

Do not try to answer the unanswerable.

Instead, ask a new question.

When you watch a parent bury the child, ask yourself how you can respond.

When you hear of another school shooting, and feel your heart shatter into pieces, ask yourself how you can respond.

When you question your faith (or lack of), ask yourself how you can respond.

Respond to the unanswerable with new questions.

Respond to the doubt with more hope.

Respond to the darkness with more light.

Respond to the hate with more love.

And in this reckoning, you will someday find peace.