
‘God, where are you?’ Kentucky pastors grapple with faith after deadly tornado
“God, where are you?” That’s the question Sean Ryan, a London, Kentucky, pastor, asked his congregation aloud Sunday.
He knew it was one of many those at his church want answered on the heels of a beastly storm and apparent tornado that killed at least 19, sent 10 others to the hospital with critical injuries and left destruction in its wake. Ryan, like many across Laurel and Pulaski counties, sheltered in his basement Friday night when high winds ripped through his community. It left dozens of homes flattened, buildings crumpled, trees snapped, a Lutheran church destroyed and at least 19 people dead. They were 25 to 93 years old. A few hours later, after Ryan and his wife put their 3-year-old daughter to bed, Ryan sat alone at his desk, grappling with this deadly disaster. A Christian, he questioned why an all-powerful God would allow such destruction to occur. Why had some lives been spared? Why had others died? Knowing his congregation would look to him for answers, he wrestled over how to answer it. “I was sitting there thinking, ‘What can we say?’” he told his First United Methodist congregation. “My question was, ‘Where are you, God?’”
“If you spared me, but you didn’t spare them, where were you in this?” Ryan shouted from the pulpit. “God, what are you up to? What are you doing and why can’t you fix this?” Ryan said he doesn’t ascribe to the belief that God punishes bad behavior by causing bad things to happen, nor does he believe in attributing tragic death as “in God’s plan.” Rather, “to love our sinful world is to suffer. To love someone is to suffer. If God is love, that is why he suffers,” he said. “And it turns out, God is right there with us.”