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So I tend to get nervous when I hear people make bold statements such as "God wouldn't let that happen" or "It's not God's will that [insert some phrase that entails a specific event, usuallly tragic]."

Not many people would make such statements so boldly (although I heard just yesterday of someone making a similar declaration). But there seems to be a current of thought that a Christian's life cannot go from bad to worse, if only because of his reconciled state. It's almost a denial (a naivete) of what life entails. Again, practically no one would state that Christians cannot see darkness at all. But the extent of such darkness, its length and depth, is often overlooked, misunderstood, or disbelieved.  

I've seen a life, dehumanized by abuse, waste away through years of great failures and small victories, until one day the striving seemed pointless, and life, a wasteland. And so of his own volition, he left life.

He was no island.

I've held dear friends whose families have been ripped apart by deceit and unfaithfulness; I've witnessed unexpected deaths of parents and children--my own father, as well as my one of my best friend's, of that number. Darkness rages, and sometimes it doesn't stop when it's supposed to, when "God wouldn't let any more happen."

I am not out to topple faith or deny the power of God (forbid it), but rather to view God as He is, to exhort those who call Him Father not to be surprised by the expansiveness of tragedy in a fallen world. Despair is very real, save only that there exists a Creator who creates light out of darkness. Ex nihilo. Out of nothing. Rich in mercy, God provides hope out of destruction, amidst destruction--not necessarily by halting it. Although--what inexpressible grace!--He does that, too.            

Forsaking wide-eyed dismay at the scope of darkness in a fallen world, yet expecting the Father of light to create hope where there should be none--this is faith unshaken by tempest.  It rests not in the circumstance of a storm's abatement, but in Him who transcends the tumult altogether.