God created a world so full of suffering and evil and then gave us free will to lead full, rich and sometimes tragic lives in it for our own good and for the satisfaction of having children worthy of Him. He realized that in a perfect world, He would be irrelevant. He did not want robot children who were hard-wired to love Him. He did not want terrorized children who were coerced to love Him. He did not want spoiled children unwholesomely dependent upon Him. He wanted the kind of children we all want: independent, thoughtful, resourceful, brave and loving. Only a world consisting of both joys and sorrows could produce such children. Would we really want it any other way?2/23/2010 DMs