Another one of my common writing themes is why do bad things happen to good people, or, at the very least, to people who are trying to do the right things.

The unpublished work that recently finaled in Get Pubbed at ScrivCon2026 is a case in point. Emilie (Hortense is her pseudonym) keeps trying to help others, but her actions cause repeated difficulties—even the sacrifice of her happily ever after. She wonders why she tries. Her mother and her sister, both of whom have no qualms about being evil, seem to run into far fewer trials and obstacles. So, why does she even bother?

While her fairy tale world barely mentions God, the idea is that Emilie, in spite of herself, has empathy. She sees other creatures and people as fellows within her world. Every time she tries to be selfish, she sees another’s plight and finds herself helping. Why? Because she has suffered pain and heartache. She puts herself in their places and treats them how she would like to be treated.

In “A Wedding to Die For”, one of the Talbott family mysteries, the wedding planner, Trish, dies/presumably murdered trying to find a cure for her mother’s terminal cancer. That situation in light of the wedding sparks a series of questions from 11-year-old Josie. She [Josie] nodded. Then, she looked suddenly serious. “I’m glad Papa found Grandma Margo, I really am. But why did my real Grandma die? Why is Miss Trish’s mom dying and no one can do anything to stop it? Or Mrs. Jones? I understand that everyone dies someday—I’m not a baby—but sometimes it doesn’t seem fair when people don’t get a full life. Doesn’t the Bible even say that life should last seventy years? How can God cut some people short, even if they love Him?”

You only need read the Bible to see people suffering in spite of doing good, attempting to do the right thing. Job is the classic account… and he never learns the answer.

The short answer is sin.

But it seems so unfair, like Josie said, when we try to live right and still suffer. Sometimes, it even seems like the doing right causes us more suffering. What gives?

Then we ask, how much wrong did Jesus do? And how much pain and agony did He suffer? “And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Mark 8:31. ESV

Characters wrestle with the disconnect between right living and wrong circumstances in my stories because it’s a common quandary for people throughout time. Even the people of Jesus’ day struggled with the injustice of it. That’s why they tried to assign blame to the man born blind to some random sin by his parents. Because what sin can you commit before birth that deserves the fate? Or concerning Job, what did his friends try to do for most of the book that bears his name? They tried to find a sin of his that had earned the bad things.

But often, it’s the general condition of the fallen world that causes the pain, heartache, illness, and death. The person, like Jesus, may have done nothing deserving the fate. In those times, Jesus offers this comfort. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John16:33, ESV

Therefore, expect my characters to circle back to this theme time and again.

Recently, I was asked by a person dear to me to join them at a concert. Knowing the concert wouldn’t be God-focused, I looked up the artists on Google and YouTube. Of the three, one seemed quite offensive, but the other two had a mix of good and bad.

After much prayer, I decided to go. My primary motivation wasn’t the music, but spending time with the person in question. I learned there were places within the venue that I could choose to “hide” if needed and made a point of learning a couple of the better songs so that I could participate in a way that wouldn’t compromise my beliefs. Then, I continued to pray.

The night of the event, I was pleased to discover that my seat, kind of off to the side, faced much of the audience as well as the stage. In other words, I could choose which I looked at. When songs and dialog contradicted my beliefs, rather than focusing on that, I gazed at the people in attendance and prayed for them. Every one of them, I knew, was a person created by God whether that person realized it or acknowledged it, and I’m assuming most did not. But I knew they all had potential to be drawn by the Holy Spirit.

At the end of the evening, I felt that I had done what God wanted me to do. He’d had me in that place to pray for the lost, the wounded, the confused, the hopeless, and pray that they would be found, healed, enlightened, and given the hope that never fails. He’d also given me that peace and grace so that I could be present for my companion.

Did I ever say I agreed with the sentiments that were ungodly? No. When asked, I expressed my view based on Scripture. But my goal wasn’t confrontation. And I have no idea if any of the prayers will bear fruit.

The point is they could.

If you were to look at the audience I prayed for, some might say that this person or that was too strange, too sinful.

But God saved King Manasseh. I can’t think of anyone in the entire Bible who was as evil as the son of Hezekiah.

And God saved him.

God saved Paul who, based on his zeal and actions, would’ve personally killed Christ if he’d been able to. Paul knew this of himself which is why he called himself the chief of sinners.

If you read all my stories and novels, this is one of the themes that you would see recur. Because this is one of my passions. This side of death, I don’t think you can write off anyone based on appearance alone. Not even a persistently sinful lifestyle is a guarantee that the one you’re talking to will go to hell. And hopefully, the reason you’re talking is because you see that individual as God’s creation, as an eternal soul with the potential to choose to repent.

I pray now, as I prayed that night, that at least one person in that audience feels the conviction of the Holy Spirit and starts seeking. Maybe they were already seeking that night and feeling unsettled by some of the unholy attitudes and opinions. I don’t know.

What I do know is the God who reached out to Manasseh and to Paul, and to me who hated Him and blasphemed Him as a teenager, is completely capable of drawing anyone to Himself.

Therefore, that theme will continue to run through what I write.

“The Grumpy Chronicles,” my winning entry in the book Out of the Storm, also touches on this theme. Therefore, this week’s winner (chosen from the last 3 weeks) wins a copy of that book with all its short stories. Kathryn, let me know if you want a paperback or ebook copy!

The day I’m posting this piece marks eight years since my mother passed away. Eight years. It both feels infinitely longer and just yesterday. I still can’t believe her presence is not upon this spinning globe.

Since her last words to me were, “I just want to be with Jesus,” I trust she’s in His presence right now. And while the sting of her loss has ebbed, there’s still a hole in my day to day where she should be.

This week I’ve been transcribing a little play that she and her sister Nancy wrote sometime in the late forties. I deduce that because Nancy was in high school, but it doesn’t say Mom was. It was written in neat cursive in pencil and is faded quite a bit. Sometimes I have to train my phone’s flashlight on it to make out a word or two. Their play, a retelling of Cinderella, exudes with youthful hopefulness. You can tell they both had lovely dreams about what their future might become. And no clue of the hardships in store, especially for Nancy.

Feeling their aspirations and creativity up close has made me miss Mom a bit more this week. I can’t ask her what they did with the play, if anything, or why they decided to write it. I can imagine the two of them on the porch if nice weather or tucked in their room, if not, heads leaned together, pondering the page and who would do what next. One thing that intrigued me was their erasure of the Fairy Godmother as a character. Why did they initially think she should be included in their “modernized” version and then take her out before they finished the second page? I also found it interesting that they scratched out deletions instead of erasing them. If they had erased them, I never would have known that the Fairy Godmother had even been considered!

Because of this activity, because of the anniversary, because of the weather, because of pain, and more, grief has resurfaced. It does that. It’s never a one and done emotion. It comes back in cycles.

This world, because of the fall, has many griefs. Beyond losing someone or something we love (thinking pets on that second half), we can lose seasons or lament the lack of a keepsake that had value to us. We can grieve changing relationships, aging bodies, or failed dreams. Thankfully, we have a savior who understands all that.

He was despised and rejected by men,
    a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
    he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (Isaiah 53:3, ESV)

Because Scripture mentions the joy Jesus experienced, I imagine he laughed. The Bible never says that directly though. It does explicitly tell us that he cried.

There’s something about having a friend who weeps with us. As long as Job’s friends sat and mourned with him, they were acting in a godly manner. It was when they began to try and imagine God’s reasons for allowing the suffering into Job’s life that they messed up. We’re nowhere close enough on the cosmic, mental, logical or any other scale to God to understand Him. We are creations, after all! Trying to analyze the mind of our Creator is foolishness.

But through his tears, through his shared grief at our predicament, we can get to know Him.

The next verse in Isaiah goes on to say:

Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.

When grief descends, looking to the cross reminds us that sorrow has an end date. Jesus’ immense love declared it is finished. And one day, we will live in His perfect world where tears will be no more.

Beginning next week, I will step away from the -ing posts for a while and do a series about my favorite story themes and why I write tales with those messages. And, of course, there will be some prizes!