{"id":26657,"date":"2025-11-15T14:25:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T19:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/?p=26657"},"modified":"2025-11-15T14:26:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T19:26:15","slug":"where-is-god-she-asked-he-had-the-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/where-is-god-she-asked-he-had-the-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"Where is God? she asked. He had the answer."},"content":{"rendered":"

Patty Duke’s autobiography is Call Me Anna.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em> One evening last week Bertha and I caught the last of the movie The Miracle Worker<\/em>, in which Patty Duke played a young Helen Keller.\u00a0 For her amazing performance, she became the youngest person to win the Academy Award.<\/p>\n

We were so touched by her performance, I went online and found her autobiography and ordered it that night.\u00a0 It was delivered two days later.<\/p>\n

Patty Duke’s childhood was a mess by any standards.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And today I came across this…<\/p>\n

Patty Duke became involved in the Muscular Dystrophy Association.\u00a0 She says, For someone my age who had not been trained to deal with seriously ill people, (this work) was initially traumatic.\u00a0 It takes an enormous toll to see these exquisite-looking, bright children who are withered and tortured in their little bodies.\u00a0 You might be bright and cheery in front of them, but inside it hurts and you’re enraged.\u00a0 You’re saying to yourself, ‘What the hell is life about? Where’s this just God I keep hearing about?’\u00a0 It’s tough stuff to wrestle with, especially when all (the parent-substitutes) would give me were trite answers to serious questions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I have read further, but cannot get past this outburst in which she blames God for the suffering.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

She’s not the first and won’t be the last to attack God for the suffering in this world.<\/p>\n

It’s the easiest thing to do, to blame God.<\/p>\n

Ms. Duke does it, then seems to assume no one has any answers, and moves on.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 We’ll see.<\/p>\n

The next day I opened Max Lucado’s The Applause of Heaven,<\/em> his 1990 book on the Beatitudes.\u00a0 I read a chapter and wept. Read another chapter and wept some more.<\/p>\n

It occurs to me that some of what Lucado wrote is a perfect response to Patty Duke’s lament about God.<\/p>\n

Here is just one story Lucado told.<\/p>\n

Robert Reed has cerebral palsy.\u00a0 The disease keeps him from driving a car, riding a bike, and going for a walk.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Having cerebral palsy didn’t keep him from teaching at a St. Louis junior college or from venturing overseas on five mission trips.<\/em><\/p>\n

And Robert’s disease didn’t prevent him from becoming a missionary in Portugal.<\/em><\/p>\n

He moved to Lisbon, alone, in 1972.\u00a0 There he rented a hotel room and began studying Portuguese.\u00a0 He found a restaurant owner who would feed him after the rush hour and a tutor who would instruct him in the language.<\/em><\/p>\n

Then he stationed himself daily in a park, where he distributed brochures about Christ.\u00a0 Within six years he led seventy people to the Lord, one of whom became his wife, Rosa.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Max Lucado says: I heard Robert speak recently.\u00a0 I watched other men carry him in his wheelchair onto the platform.\u00a0 I watched them lay a Bible in his lap.\u00a0 I watched his stiff fingers force open the pages.\u00a0 And I watched people in the audience wipe away tears of admiration from their faces.\u00a0 Robert could have asked for sympathy or pity, but he did just the opposite.\u00a0 He held his bent hand up in the air and boasted, “I have everything I need for joy.”<\/em><\/p>\n

His shirts are held together by ‘Velcro,’ but his life is held together by joy.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s where the “just God” is, Ms. Duke.\u00a0 He’s at work in the lives of those who trust Him.<\/p>\n

I sincerely hope you have discovered this personally.<\/p>\n

And then, it occurred to me.<\/p>\n

Helen Keller is her answer.\u00a0 The childhood disease took her sight and her hearing.\u00a0 And yet–with the help of Anne Sullivan–she rose above these limitations.\u00a0 Think how much poorer this world would have been without the indomitable Helen Keller.<\/p>\n

There are basic truths at work in this world.\u00a0 Evil is afoot.\u00a0 Satan is on earth (see Revelation 12).\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Where is God?\u00a0 Answer:\u00a0 He is with us.\u00a0 He is on the job.<\/p>\n

Those with eyes of faith see Him.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Patty Duke’s autobiography is Call Me Anna.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 For her amazing performance, she became the youngest … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,74,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-god","category-suffering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26657"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26673,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26657\/revisions\/26673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}