When Suffering, Justice, and God’s Heart Finally Make Sense

For a long time, I struggled with the same question many people carry quietly in their hearts:
If God is real, why is there so much suffering? Why does He allow injustice? Why doesn’t He stop it?

This question is not intellectual — it is emotional.
It breaks marriages.
It shakes faith.
It keeps people far from God because they fear a God who feels distant, passive, or cruel.

I carried that question, too. In fact, before I ever prayed for mercy, the first thing I ever prayed for was justice.
Not the world’s definition of justice — but God’s justice.
His judgment against evil.
His protection over the innocent.
His vindication for the wounded.

Back then, I even started writing a comic book about “heroes” who carried out God’s justice — strong, decisive, punishing evil where God seemed too slow.

And then God humbled me.
He turned everything inside-out in a way only the Father can do.

What I thought was “justice” was still human justice, fueled by my wounds.
God wanted to show me divine justice, which is something altogether different.

**1. Human justice looks at suffering and gets angry.

Divine justice looks at suffering and seeks to heal.**

We want suffering eradicated immediately.
God wants suffering transformed eternally.

We want villains punished.
God wants sinners converted.

We want events fixed.
God wants hearts restored.

This is why the problem of suffering is such a stumbling block.
We imagine a God who should be a cosmic policeman.
Instead, we find a Father who is working through human freedom, human sin, and human history to bring about something greater than punishment — redemption.

“The Lord is just in all His ways and kind in all His works.” — Psalm 145:17

Justice and kindness.
Judgment and mercy.
This is the God who suffers with us and heals through suffering.

2. Human free will is not a flaw — it is the arena of love.

For God to remove every possibility of suffering, He would have to remove every possibility of love.
Love demands freedom.
Freedom includes the possibility of sin.
Sin creates suffering.

And yet, God does not leave us drowning in the consequences.

He enters the suffering.
He transforms it.
He nails it to the Cross.

This is why the Catechism says:

“In everything, God works for good, even evil, through His providence.” (CCC 312)

He does not cause evil.
He conquers it from within.

3. Then God began showing me how His justice actually works — with mercy at the center.

A few days ago, I sent my coparent an article about the Catholic bishops speaking out on behalf of migrant workers and immigrants.
Her reply surprised me:

“Good — at least the Catholic Church is on the right side of history.”

At first, it felt off.
Fleshy.
Human.
As if the Church were following popular morality.

But then I realized something deeper:

The Church isn’t trying to be “on the right side of history.”
She is revealing the heart of God — the same heart I once feared, misunderstood, and wrestled with.

She wasn’t praising politics.
She was responding, maybe unknowingly, to divine justice — the kind rooted in mercy, human dignity, and the protection of the vulnerable.

It was a gentle reminder:
Most people aren’t rejecting God. They’re rejecting a distorted idea of Him.
And often, God uses moments of human compassion to draw them toward divine compassion without them even realizing it.

4. My own heart changed the same way — slowly, through suffering.

I once wanted God to execute justice with the force of a hammer.
Instead, He placed me in situations where I had to listen, surrender, forgive, wait, and trust.

He showed me:

• His justice is patient, not reactive.

• His timing is perfect, not rushed.

• His judgment is true, not emotional.

• His mercy is stronger than my desire to control outcomes.

Suffering became the place where God rewrote my understanding of Him.

And in that suffering, I discovered what St. Augustine meant:

“God would never permit evil if He could not bring greater good from it.”

This is divine justice — not the absence of suffering, but the transformation of suffering into salvation.

5. For anyone struggling with the same questions… here is the truth I learned:

**God is not absent.

God is not cruel.
God is not indifferent.**

He is Truth.
He is Mercy.
He is Justice.
He is Love.

And His justice is not about “the right side of history.”
History changes.
Truth does not.

His justice is about the right side of His heart — a heart wounded for us, pierced for us, and always moving toward the vulnerable, the poor, the immigrant, the sinner, the lost, and the suffering.

Including you.
Including me.
Including the souls who can’t yet see Him but feel something stirring when they encounter goodness.

Closing Prayer

Father, for every soul wounded by suffering, confused by evil, or afraid of Your justice — reveal Your heart.
Show them that Your justice is mercy, Your judgment is truth, and Your providence is love.
Give us new hearts that can trust You even when we do not understand.
Lead us from our flesh into the Spirit, from fear into faith, and from human anger into divine compassion.
Amen.