Where are you?

Silence:

Take
Take till there's nothing
Nothing to turn to
Nothing when you get through
Won't you break
Scattered pieces of all I've been
Bowing to all I've been
Running to
Where are you?
Where are you?

Did you leave me unbreakable?
You leave me frozen?
I've never felt so cold
I thought you were silent
And I thought you left me
For the wreckage and the waste
On an empty beach of faith
Was it true?

'cause I...I got a question
I got a question
Where are you?

Scream
Deeper I wanna scream
I want you to hear me
I want you to find me
'cause I...I want to believe
But all I pray is wrong
And all I claim is gone

And I...I got a question
I got a question
Where are you?
Yeah....yeah
And where...I...I got a question
I got a question
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
-Jars of Clay

     Jasper, a main character in my book, asked this question today. The answer reverberated through my mind like a gong that shakes the walls, the one Pink Floyd had in their music video, the kind you hit with a hammer with all your body. My jaw is a little sore still. Where is God, when these agonizing things happen? With my lovely life, complete with running water and carpet and fantastic parents, I can say He's God, He's with you, He'll never forsake you. But what to say to Jasper? His innocence was stripped from him before he knew what it was. He has nothing to turn to, nothing to believe in. Where was God every moment he spent in despair, in agony, in grief from what his adopted father had forced him to do? When he bent over people he had tortured to save his mother, trying to weep, but unable to make the tears come? Every kind deed he did was met with a blow or a slash with a knife. Where was God in that?
     I couldn't answer this, and I turned to others for this. Theologians didn't know in their hearts. Sympathetic men  could not answer.
     When Jasper stood, and asked where God was when he killed, and when his mother was killed, making empty everything he did, Ravenna stood and said, "Right beside you, weeping for you."
     I trust her. She's felt the despair, the wild hopelessness. Eloi opened her eyes, and showed her where He had been all those times.God was never distant, never out of reach. He felt the agony Himself, and the pain of frustration that each suffering one would not turn and look, see the arms around them, ready to relieve them of their despair. 
     The hard part about God is that he knows the tormentor, as well. Free will, we all know. God feels the agony of all, not only the victim. This is one of the endless things that marks Him so far above our minds. Jasper as yet to understand this, but I believe he will.
     Jasper didn't stay to argue with her. He heard it. Through her, God is no longer silent to him. Jasper has something to believe, a prayer to pray. I'm always surprised when he bursts out with things like this, but it helps me to understand him. Watching his redemption has shown me much about God.