Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Facing suffering

In June 2005, I reviewed David Horowitz's The End of Time, which explores his thinking when hit with a prostate cancer diagnosis. Horowitz's typical books terrifically assault the errors of the left, but this book was different: Horowitz, without faith in God, tells his believing wife that he'll think about this most important of all questions—to which she replies, "I don't want you to think. I want you to open your heart."
Horowitz's latest, A Cracking of the Heart (Regnery), movingly reveals the opening involuntarily created when Horowitz's daughter Sarah died at age 44. Horowitz writes, "When death takes someone you love, you are left with a hole in the heart that will never be filled. . . . Whenever I think of Sarah, tears well in my eyes, and my chest fills to the brim; and then I am overwhelmed by the terrible sorrow of our human lot."
Alcorn's book will not take away the pain of Horowitz or that of many others—but Alcorn says the hole can eventually be filled (although probably not for a long time). How? The Bible astoundingly promises that in the next life if not this one, God will wipe away the tears of all with faith in Him. Horowitz wrote in a note to me last month, "Faith can't be an intellectual act. You really have to be touched by it." True. Pray for touching. — Marvin Olasky, World Magazine

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