When the Innocent Suffer: Why God Allows Pain in a Broken World

In Loving Memory of the Camp Mystic Girls and Counselors 🕊️

This reflection is humbly rededicated to the beautiful lives lost in the July 2025 flood in Hunt, Texas.

These young souls gathered in a place of joy, faith, and community. They were daughters, sisters, friends—light in this world.

As we grieve, may we remember: God did not spare Himself from suffering. He stepped into ours, so none of us would walk through pain alone.

May these words bring comfort to the hurting, and may we each choose compassion as our response to sorrow.

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My niece’s friend asked me a question that pierced right through my heart:“Why would a good God allow suffering — especially among the most vulnerable: the babies, the voiceless, the innocent?”

This question doesn’t just challenge the mind—it wounds the soul. Whether it’s the cries of a hungry child, the pain of a dying animal, or the horror of war and abuse, the suffering of the innocent feels, at first glance, impossible to reconcile with the idea of a loving, all-powerful God.

But as Catholics, we don’t ignore this mystery. We lean into it—with Scripture in one hand, theology in the other, and trust in our hearts.

✝ Free Will: The Gift That Comes with Risk

The Catechism tells us that God created us out of love, and love, by nature, must be free. He did not create robots but human beings capable of choice—of choosing to love or reject Him. That dignity comes with a consequence.

Sin entered the world through human disobedience (Genesis 3), and with it came disorder, disease, and death. Babies don’t choose war. Children don’t choose poverty or violence. But they are born into a world shaped by generations of sinful choices—greed, pride, apathy, and neglect.

God does not cause this. We do. And every time we wound another, we wound Him.

“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”— Acts 9:4

Jesus didn’t ask, “Why are you hurting My followers?”He said: “Me.”Because God suffers with His people.

🕊 God Didn’t Spare Himself from Suffering

The most radical truth in Christianity is this:

God did not shield Himself from human pain—He entered into it.

He came not as a king in splendor, but as a child born into poverty. He experienced hunger, betrayal, torture, and death.

“He was despised and rejected by men;a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”— Isaiah 53:3

As St. Augustine wrote:

“God had one Son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.”

In Jesus, God doesn’t just explain suffering—He shares it. And through the Cross, He redeems it.

🐣 What About the Innocent?

Still, we ask: Why must babies suffer? What about those who never had a chance?

Here, the Church does not pretend to offer neat answers—but it does offer hope.

Jesus said:

“Let the children come to Me, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”— Matthew 19:14

The Church entrusts unbaptized infants and innocent lives to the infinite mercy of God (Catechism 1261).In ways known only to Him, He gathers them into His eternal embrace.

Not one tear is wasted. Not one cry unheard.

St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us:

“God permits evil only in order to draw from it a greater good.”(Summa Theologica, I, q. 2)

We may not see that good now. But we believe that in eternity, what was broken will be restored. What was lost will be returned. And those who suffered silently in this life will sing joyfully in the next.

🧡 A Personal Reflection: Loving Through the Pain

I’ve been rescuing and feeding stray animals since 2015. What began as a few small efforts became a way of life. Today, I care for 24 cats—all foster fails. I didn’t mean to keep them all, but love has a way of sneaking in and staying. Don't worry all of them have been neutered and spayed.

One moment that changed me was holding a dying dove in my hands—our Dovey. She had been injured by one of my own rescues. I did everything I could. I prayed, I nursed her gently, I wept. She didn’t survive. But in that quiet goodbye, I felt something profound:

God was with us. Not above us. Not watching. But with us.

Every time I see another stray—sick, hungry, afraid—it breaks me. If I had the funds, I’d take them all in. I ache because I can’t. I’ve learned that we have to choose the battles we can fight with God, not just for Him.

And when we love—even one creature, even one soul—we echo the tenderness of the One who said, “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for Me.”

🌿 A Final Reflection

The world is heavy with sorrow.

But we are not powerless.

Every one of us—no matter how limited our resources or how overwhelmed we feel—can choose compassion.

We may not be able to end all suffering.

But we can hold someone in theirs.

We can offer food, shelter, a gentle word, a prayer.

We can look the wounded in the eye—human or animal—and whisper:

“You matter. You are seen.”

“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for Me.”— Matthew 25:40

So when we ask why God allows suffering, perhaps part of the answer is this:

He allows us.

To be the answer.

To be His hands. His healing. His hope.

And maybe that is how heaven touches earth—not through thunder, but through love.