A person with a twisted mind decides to do violence to another human being, and a stunned family carries with them for the rest of their lives the memory of a lost loved one and a scar that never fully fades. Hard things are hard. Someone decides to tell a vicious lie about a rival or an opponent, and a sterling reputation is turned black and blue by the subtle bruise of a rumor. Hard things are hard. Hard things are hard, and sometimes life s hardest hard things land in the laps of life s most innocent bystanders.
Hard things are hard.
And, then, some of life's hard things cannot be traced to anybody's sin-ours or anybody elses. They just come. And when they come, those hard things are hard. We can spend our lives trying to decipher the unresolvable mystery of human suffering. We can scan the scriptures with a magnifying glass, seeking guarantees of good health and exemption from trouble.