We often hear: “If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world?”

But someone also asked,” If God is evil, why is there so much good in the world?”

Regardless, when one suffers great loss—the death of a loved one perhaps or witnesses the suffering of innocent children—normally the griever is not interested in philosophical answers.

Perhaps it’s a matter of simply getting through the loss as best one can.

When I wrote my book Thy Dross to Consume, I didn’t presume to answer the question of why evil exists. I simply wanted to tell the story of how one man stumbled through his grieving after a loss.

Often we sons and daughters of the western world assume the answer lies with our particular slant on religion or philosophy.

So, Tadros, an Egyptian Coptic Christian, entered my story to explore loss from a different perspective.

Tadros, suffering through his own earlier loss, came to tie his loss with God’s loss. If you do not subscribe to Christian beliefs, you no doubt will find other ways to deal with loss, perhaps even atheism.

For Tadros, though, as a Christian of a minority faith in Egypt, his journey finally ended with understanding a God who suffered his own loss.

It allowed Tadros to scream his hurt, as Jesus, dying on a Roman cross, screamed at God. It did not deny him lamentation by mouthing trite sayings.

My imperfect novel was not intended as deep theology or philosophy. It was only a story to illustrate how one person found the comfort he needed.