God, Life, and Love

So, I still don't understand why God lets such evil exist in the world, but I do know for sure that he loves me and I'm going to have to trust that he loves those people who are going through such horrible things.  While I was thinking about it some time in the past couple of days, the thought came to me that God made and loves the people who are committing those acts too and that it breaks his heart to see his children committing such atrocities, but I believe that he has also given us the freedom to choose to follow him or to follow the evil power that exists in the world.  I'm not excusing what they are doing, please, please, don't think I am saying that.  Just realizing that he loves them too made me check my anger and think a little more.  

It's nice to have a God who will let you get furious with him and still be ok with it.  

I realized about a week ago that I'm afraid of loving life.  There are several people that I've known that have seemed full of life that have died in tragic freak accidents.  Somehow from that and from the Bible saying that the one who loves his life will lose it, I drew the conclusion that I shouldn't love living and being alive.  I guess that got me stuck in the apathy that I developed to deal with some major pain that I had to deal with earlier in my life.  I  didn't live my life for fear that I would lose it and for fear that I would get hurt again.  

I'm still afraid of both of those things, but now I want to live my life.  I want to stop just drifting along and I want to do something.  But I feel like I woke up too late...  But I need to hope that God has a plan in store for me.  It doesn't mean that I'll like the plan...I'm going to get hurt again--hopefully not as bad as before--but God's going to work through me as a witness to his eternal kingdom.  And, you know what, I can't lose my life!  I have eternal life in Christ Jesus and my eternal life starts now!  It started yesterday, last year, almost 23 years ago!  And I'm finally waking up to it.  

I've got to go out and live this life that I've been given!