Patty Duke’s autobiography is Call Me Anna.  One evening last week Bertha and I caught the last of the movie The Miracle Worker, in which Patty Duke played a young Helen Keller.  For her amazing performance, she became the youngest person to win the Academy Award.

We were so touched by her performance, I went online and found her autobiography and ordered it that night.  It was delivered two days later.

Patty Duke’s childhood was a mess by any standards.  You read of how she was treated–used, abused, manipulated, lied to–and you feel some people are going to burn in hell for this.  I’ve not finished the book–I read a couple of chapters and lay the book aside for a day or two–it’s difficult.  And today I came across this…

Patty Duke became involved in the Muscular Dystrophy Association.  She says, For someone my age who had not been trained to deal with seriously ill people, (this work) was initially traumatic.  It takes an enormous toll to see these exquisite-looking, bright children who are withered and tortured in their little bodies.  You might be bright and cheery in front of them, but inside it hurts and you’re enraged.  You’re saying to yourself, ‘What the hell is life about? Where’s this just God I keep hearing about?’  It’s tough stuff to wrestle with, especially when all (the parent-substitutes) would give me were trite answers to serious questions.  

I have read further, but cannot get past this outburst in which she blames God for the suffering.

She’s not the first and won’t be the last to attack God for the suffering in this world.

It’s the easiest thing to do, to blame God.

Ms. Duke does it, then seems to assume no one has any answers, and moves on.

As I continue to read, I hope to find she has stayed with the questions and given God a chance to show Himself and open up a part of life to her which had been closed off.  We’ll see.

The next day I opened Max Lucado’s The Applause of Heaven, his 1990 book on the Beatitudes.  I read a chapter and wept. Read another chapter and wept some more.

It occurs to me that some of what Lucado wrote is a perfect response to Patty Duke’s lament about God.

Here is just one story Lucado told.

Robert Reed has cerebral palsy.  The disease keeps him from driving a car, riding a bike, and going for a walk.  But it didn’t keep him from graduating from high school or attending Abilene Christian University, from which he graduated with a degree in Latin.  Having cerebral palsy didn’t keep him from teaching at a St. Louis junior college or from venturing overseas on five mission trips.

And Robert’s disease didn’t prevent him from becoming a missionary in Portugal.

He moved to Lisbon, alone, in 1972.  There he rented a hotel room and began studying Portuguese.  He found a restaurant owner who would feed him after the rush hour and a tutor who would instruct him in the language.

Then he stationed himself daily in a park, where he distributed brochures about Christ.  Within six years he led seventy people to the Lord, one of whom became his wife, Rosa. 

Max Lucado says: I heard Robert speak recently.  I watched other men carry him in his wheelchair onto the platform.  I watched them lay a Bible in his lap.  I watched his stiff fingers force open the pages.  And I watched people in the audience wipe away tears of admiration from their faces.  Robert could have asked for sympathy or pity, but he did just the opposite.  He held his bent hand up in the air and boasted, “I have everything I need for joy.”

His shirts are held together by ‘Velcro,’ but his life is held together by joy. 

That’s where the “just God” is, Ms. Duke.  He’s at work in the lives of those who trust Him.

I sincerely hope you have discovered this personally.

And then, it occurred to me.

Helen Keller is her answer.  The childhood disease took her sight and her hearing.  And yet–with the help of Anne Sullivan–she rose above these limitations.  Think how much poorer this world would have been without the indomitable Helen Keller.

There are basic truths at work in this world.  Evil is afoot.  Satan is on earth (see Revelation 12).  And the living God is at work doing a thousand things, some of which we see and most of which we will not see until in eternity.

Where is God?  Answer:  He is with us.  He is on the job.

Those with eyes of faith see Him.