Why does God let bad things happen?

This is something I've been asked many times and a question I've asked myself more times than I can count. There are no easy answers to that question, and I would walk away feeling like I had failed the person asking in some way. I didn't have an answer for myself, so how on earth could I speak for someone else's life? Through writing this book, however, God showed me something that answered the question:

God is bringing something beautiful from the bad, the ugly, and the trauma.

Now, this is not an umbrella answer for all of life's pains. It is simply the answer He gave to my insistent questioning (and whining, if I'm being honest). Did I like it? Hell no, I didn't like it! I was hurting! I wanted the pain to stop and I didn't care about anything else.

As a child, I was sexually abused by my grandfather from the time I was four until I was thirteen. These memories were repressed until the summer of 2016 when they came roaring back to the surface. I relived one of the moments in vivid detail that shook me to my core. It was like being violated all over again and I was filled with a consuming rage at my innocence having been stripped from me. Truly, I didn't know such hatred could exist.

During my teen years, I became addicted to pornography and it was, looking back, a way to cope with what was done to me. Porn was how I could regain feeling from the perpetual numbness that settled into my soul, even though with every video I felt myself slip farther into a shame cycle. I had been a believer in Jesus since I was six, but here I was, trapped in the midst of pain and addiction, unable to escape. No matter how hard I prayed or read my Bible, I would findmyself falling deeper into addiction.

When I was eighteen, I sat on the edge of my bed with my pistol, ready to end my life because I thought I didn't have any value. My first girlfriend had dumped me. I was ashamed of my addiction. I felt like there was no way God could love me when I was constantly backsliding to porn. I was empty, broken, and numb. 

I felt alone in the middle of a crowd. I wasn't though. To say God rescued me from myself would not be an understatement. In that moment when I was ready to pull the trigger, He stepped in and said, "I have more for you than this."

You would think that everything got better, but I had a long way to go.

When I sat down in January of 2019 and pounded out fifty thousand words in twenty-nine days, I had no idea where this book would take me. Heck, I didn't even have a plot when I started writing it. I just wrote. As Trinia, one of the main characters in the book, took shape, I poured my traumatic past into her to more fully explore what it looks like before someone breaks from the weight of it all.

More than that, I wrote her for all of those who, like me, have dealt with the shame of sexual abuse—feeling dirty, unwanted, unloved, and alone in their silence. Trinia is meantto show what happens when you don't heal, when you stuff it down, hide it, or hold onto the hate that is so justly held against your abuser. I wrote her to show how that same hate hollows you out inside until nothing is left.

That's not even touching on all the issues Údar has! Good grief, that dude has issues. If Trinia shows how the hate can kill you on the inside, Údar wrestling with God reflects my own relationship with Him. The questioning of "Why! Why me?" is reflected in him, and I believe it echoes in the lives of others, too.

Because I believe so many have gone through similar things, and have never spoken about it, I wanted to continue with these themes. I wanted to give voice to how victims of abuse may feel because that was how I felt and still feel at times. They deserve to be heard. If that means I bare my soul before the world, I will do so. They are worth it.

While my dearest hope is that many will read this book and fall in love with the characters and the world, this book is for those who, like me, went through darkness. Some made it; others are trapped in it; many succumbed to it. Entering into the world of being an adult is something no one can ever truly prepare for because it affects us all differently based upon our experiences. And for those who have trauma (remembered or not), it colors our view of life.

It took until 2015 for me to join an addiction recovery group and begin to see the patterns of brokenness in my life and why I was using porn to cope with my pain. The year 2016 brought with it the first of the trauma memories relating to my grandfather and so much hatred. In 2018, more memories resurfaced, putting a new start date to the sexual abuse at age four. Not to mention my wife getting sick, injuring my shoulder at work, and having to move in with my in-laws (which was about the only blessing I could see at the time). 

In 2019, we moved to Baker City, Oregon, and with it came a feeling of peace I'd not known since I was a teen going to our vacation spot at Wallowa Lake, Oregon. I had a feeling of finally being home. 

But amid all the good things happening with me starting a business, my wife's health improving, and building friendships, I was still ungrateful. It was because I resented God. I didn't trust Him to take care of me and my family. I was bitter and angry with Him because of what He allowed to happen to me. I asked Him over and over again, "Why?"

You know those moments when you stop in your tracks because a thought strikes you? That's kinda how it happened with me.

In the blink of an eye, God showed me all the beautiful things that have come out of my pain because I was willing to let Him heal my soul. The people I met, the lives I've touched,the friendships forged—none of it would have happened without that pain. He didn't cause it to happen. He could have stopped it from happening. Now looking back, I'm really glad He didn't because He took what was meant for evil and used it to help other people through me. And that's a gift I never would have thought could happen.

This is only my life experience, and I don't know what things you have gone through before getting to this point in your life where you are holding my book in your hands. But no matter where you are right now, we know that life has a way of throwing things at us we didn't expect that can shake us to the core—whether abuse, the loss of a loved one, a disease with no treatment, or an act of violence.

I don't know where you are as you start this journey with me, just know that there is healing for you. There is more to learn, to love, and to be grateful for. We are on the same path, you and I, and we shall walk it together.

Wherever you are, thank you. Thank you for reading this; it is a piece of my heart and soul, a canvas of the pains and triumphs I've lived, and a call to those hurting as well as the healed. As you join Trinia and Údar on their journey, my prayer is that you will see how much God loves you, no matter the past you may have lived. No height, no depth, nor length, or width can keep His deep, abiding love for you away.

If you, my dear reader, are the only person to ever read this book, and it touches your life in some way, I shall count all the hours poured into this manuscript worth it. 

You are worth it.

May God rain down His love on you,

S.D. Howard