"You just don't even what to say to God anymore."  These poignant words come from Sherri Pomeroy, wife of Frank Pomeroy, pastor of the Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, which, as you may recall, was the target of a horrific armed attack recently.
     Mrs. Pomeroy is being admirably honest.  Those of us who believe in God know (or should know) full well that even if we believe that God is always good, we will inevitably encounter life circumstances in which we are at a loss for words.  Even for God.
     In such times, it is all too easy to say that God is in the darkness before us.  Of course he is.  But this assertion seems unspeakably empty in the face of overwhelming tragedy.  What does God's presence really do for us?  We may think we sense him, we may suppose he is guiding us, we may venture to acknowledge his compassion and companionship.  Yet we are still left with the vicissitudes of a fallen and broken world.
     Some of my atheist friends tell me that they envy me.  Why?  They envy me because even in awful circumstances I find comfort, an indefinable yet purposeful comfort, in the fact of God.  They do not have such comfort.  And they readily acknowledge this.
     So what do we do?  We are left with believing in God in the midst of evil and pain, or not believing in God in the midst of evil and pain.  The latter, one might argue, is the braver option:  it seeks no other comfort than that of one's fellow human beings.  It doesn't pretend there is anything else.
     But the question remains:  why, in an accidental world, do we even seek comfort at all?  We may not know what to say to God, but in a random world, a world of accidental plops, we have nothing, absolutely nothing, really, to say at all.
     We'll never unravel our ultimate emptiness