Genesis 4

Over the past few years, I have had a hard time reconciling the person of God and undeserving evil. Not so much the existential questions of how evil exists in light of God, but more, how can such terrible things happen to people. Especially children. Why God. Why.

I've also been confronted with new realities of evil in our new neighborhood. Systemic poverty, broken families, but especially violence. The faceless drive-by's that don't seem to have a purpose besides vengeance. The fact that most of these shootings are of teenagers.

Today I was reading Genesis 4 with some other women, and one verse stood out to me. After Cain had killed Abel out of what could have been jealousy, anger, or revenge, God confronts Cain. He says the following:

"What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground." (v. 10)

And it hit me. God really does see. He really does hear. And I can only imagine His heart in light of His omniscient awareness of specifically this geographically small part of the world. As much as these tragedies hurt me, God hears the voice of their blood crying to Him from the ground. And God responded by following up with Cain.

He heard. 

And He responded.