Here's another question: What does being blown up at Hiroshima teach? One moment I'm here, the next I'm beyond mortality. Or much, much worse.

Now we open, perhaps, an even more tender can of worms. Does God allow the innocent to suffer and die simply to allow indictment of those guilty of their needless suffering and/or death?

Here again, we face the issue of perspective with regard to the last question. If our free moral choice is eminently important and necessary to mortality, and it's necessity is directly tied to our final reward, that is, the quality of our life during immortality, then God must allow a way for those who would choose to be guilty of horrendous actions to actually perform those actions.

Does he have a foreknowledge of those actions? Of course. "Then why," you ask, "Doesn't He simply tell the guilty when they are being judged that they would have committed those crimes, or show them in some way what they would have done if allowed? Good question. Would they then be able to say, "I don't believe I would have done that. Your judgement is unfair?"

The only way to properly indict the guilty is to allow them to be guilty. And that requires the innocent to suffer and possibly die at their hands. That is how important free moral agency stands in the overall plan our Heavenly Father gave to us and to which we all agreed prior to coming here. Here's a good question you may already have at the ready, "If we saw our mortal lives before we came here and agreed to them, why would those guilty of horrendous acts agree to come, or why would their victims?" Good questions.

Did We See It All?

I sometimes wonder if we all were allowed to see all the details of our mortal lives beforehand for just that reason. Or, perhaps, we saw a number of possibilities dependent on our choices or the choices of others. Perhaps those who became guilty of unjust acts thought they would avoid making the decisions they would be allowed to make if they so chose. We do not have the definitive answer to some of these questions but we can certainly "reason together" as the Lord said in Isaiah.

There is no doubt, however, that we come here to learn. We are all unique. As such we all need a unique set of trials to teach us what will benefit us. A beautiful gemstone begins as a crude and misshapen rock from the depths of the earth. Only to the trained eye does it have value in its native form. But submit it to the grindstone and then ever increasing levels of polish and eventually great beauty and value shines forth. We begin as crude and misshapen rocks. Only God knows what grinding, shaping, and polishing is necessary to make of us beautiful and shining examples of His work.

God Has Our True Blueprint

As we live and have mortal experiences we may see the Lord adding a room or even a second story to the structure of our life and character. But as we experience the visissitudes of life and wonder why we must endure such pain, hardship, loneliness, or rejection, we fail to realize what the great Architect has in store for us.

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis: We will most surely marvel when He is finished with us and we see that what He had in mind was not a simple remodel or addition but the complete tearing down of what we were so that he could rebuild the palace of unequalled brilliance that we were to become.

Make no mistake, not one moment of this mortal life ought to be wasted by us—not the joyful or the painful. Both have their lessons to teach and their value to our lives.