Tamara K. Anderson shares stories about storms, the coronavirus, why God lets bad things happen, and what all this has to do with the 2 great commandments. I am so excited to be here with you today. I'm feeling a little bit of the Coronavirus quarantine going on and I am excited talk about two specific reasons why God lets things like the Coronavirus happen. In https://tamarakanderson.com/episodes/scott-shay-where-is-god-in-hard-times/ (my episode with Scott Shay) last week, he told the phenomenal story of his father being a Holocaust survivor. And he talked about the golden rule, and how God lets people use their free will. And then He watches what we do with it. It's kind of a test, Scott explained. Why does God let Hard Things Happen?1. Free WillSometimes God lets hard things happen it is because of the free will of others. For example, in the case of Nazi Germany, and Scott's father. You can read more about Scott's thoughts about this in https://tamarakanderson.com/episodes/scott-shay-where-is-god-in-hard-times/ (last week's episode.) One of these reasons is because people choose to use their free will in a way that impacts others negatively. We see that all around us. But we also see the positive reaction of free will as well. Scott also talked about the golden rule and how we act to those around us. 2. Act of NatureSometimes, like in the case of the Coronavirus or earthquakes, it's an act of nature. Why does God let these types of things happen? Now, we happen to have had an earthquake here in Utah just a few weeks ago and it scared me. I thought, Oh my goodness, we're having this on top of the coronavirus. Dear Lord, what what are supposed to do? I'm thankful it was short. So why does God let things like the coronavirus, earthquakes and devastations like floods happen? I think that these moments when we experience hard times are defining moments for each of us to choose how we are going to react. The Tornado StoryI'm going to tell you a story about when a tornado went through our neighborhood when our family lived in Arkansas. We lived in Arkansas for seven and a half years. It was wonderful. We loved our neighbors. We loved the area. The only thing I really did not like about the area was the tornadoes or the chance for tornadoes. They had the practice tornado sirens that went off every week. It seemed like every thunderstorm that came in, that the tornado siren would go off. And so we kind of got used to it. But this particular storm, I remember going outside and looking at the clouds, and it just felt different. There was a feeling of heaviness in the air. And I remember looking at those clouds and they looked a little green and thinking, This isn't normal. This is different. So I ran inside and told my husband to move the truck in the garage as the tornado sirens were going off. Then we grabbed our kids and we ran downstairs to our laundry room, which is our innermost room. And just as we were getting the last the kids inside our laundry room, the noise became so loud. Projectiles were hitting our house. It felt like we were suddenly in a pressurized airplane. I remember my ears feeling the pressure suck air out of our house. It was it was surreal and scary. We sat huddled in that little laundry room probably for longer than we should have, because a tornado is over very quickly. I mean, it's like you blink your eyes and it's over. It's just unbelievably fast. The Aftermath of the TornadoThank goodness, we were only impacted by an F1 tornado. So, fences were down, windows were broken in our neighborhood. There were shingles from people's roofs everywhere. I mean, you couldn't go five feet in any direction without finding a shingle. Amazingly, our kids went to school the next day and everybody in our neighborhood took off work or was excused from work, so that they could start the cleanup effort. And I will tell you, that time brought our neighborhood closer together. It really did. We were out loving...