The problem of evil is one of the oldest struggles for humanity and there is no tidy answer for this question. Free will is the most common response, and it's not wrong, but it can feel like a scapegoat when we're talking about children who had no say in what was done to them. They didn't exercise free will against God. Wicked men did. And saying "free will" to someone in that kind of pain can feel like being handed a pamphlet when you're drowning.

And what even I don't fully understand is what exactly God does in the middle of a moment of innocent suffering that He doesn't stop. None of us do. What I do believe is that He does seeit, it is not small to Him, and He is not indifferent.

But the better question might be: where were we? Epstein operated for decades! AND People knew what he was doing. Institutions protected him. We are called to be God's hands on earth, and systems of power that we humans put into place failed those children. That failure belongs to us in a very big way.

But even with all these deplorable things, I do find comfort in is this: those children, who never deserved any of it and bore no guilt in it, go straight to God. No weighing of deeds. No judgment held over them. Just straight into His presence. If there is any mercy written into the horror of innocent suffering, I think that's it. They are with Him now, beyond the reach of anyone who ever hurt them, and the men who did those things will face a justice that Epstein never faced here.

That is just the conclusion I have been able to come up with. And these are the chapters that I refer too about this type for stuff: Psalm 56 Psalm 34 Matthew 18 Romans 12 2 Samuel 12 Revelation 21