Many people don't understand why a loving God would create a world full of so much pain and suffering. The story of "The Little Soul and the Sun" adapted from the "Conversations With God" books does a nice job of explaining why that is. The excerpt below is the original version with some preamble taken directly from Book 1 and 3 of Conversations with God.
Book 1
Illness and disease are opposites of health and wellness, and are made manifest in your reality at your behest. You cannot be ill without at some level causing yourself to be, and you can be well again in a moment by simply deciding to be. Deep personal disappointments are responses which are chosen, and worldwide calamities are the result of worldwide consciousness.
Your question infers that I choose these events, that it is My will and desire they should occur. Yet I do not will these things into being, I merely observe you doing so. And I do nothing to stop them, because to do so would be to thwart your will. That, in turn, would deprive you of the God experience, which is the experience you and I have chosen together.
Do not condemn, therefore, all that you would call bad in the world. Rather, ask yourself, what about this have you judged bad, and what, if anything, you wish to do to change it.
Inquire within, rather than without, asking: “What part of my Self do I wish to experience now in the face of this calamity? What aspect of being do I choose to call forth?” For all of life exists as a tool of your own creation, and all of its events merely present themselves as opportunities for you to decide, and be, Who You Are.
This is true for every soul, and so you see there are no victims in the universe, only creators. The Masters who have walked this planet all knew this. That is why, no matter which Master you might name, none imagined themselves to be victimized— though many were truly crucified.
Each soul is a Master—though some do not remember their origins or their heritages. Yet each creates the situation and the circumstance for its own highest purpose and its own quickest remembering—in each moment called now.
Judge not, then, the karmic path walked by another. Envy not success, nor pity failure, for you know not what is success or failure in the soul’s reckoning. Call not a thing calamity, nor joyous event, until you decide, or witness, how it is used. For is a death a calamity if it saves the lives of thousands? And is a life a joyous event if it has caused nothing but grief? Yet even this you should not judge, but keep always your own counsel, and allow others theirs.
This does not mean ignore a call for help, nor the urging of your own soul to work toward the change of some circumstance or condition. It does mean avoiding labels and judgment while you do whatever you do. For each circumstance is a gift, and in each experience is hidden a treasure.
There once was a soul who knew itself to be the light. This was a new soul, and so, anxious for experience. “I am the light,” it said. “I am the light.” Yet all the knowing of it and all the saying of it could not substitute for the experience of it. And in the realm from which this soul emerged, there was nothing but the light. Every soul was grand, every soul was magnificent, and every soul shone with the brilliance of My awesome light. And so the little soul in question was as a candle in the sun. In the midst of the grandest light —of which it was a part—it could not see itself, nor experience itself as Who and What it Really Is.
Now it came to pass that this soul yearned and yearned to know itself. And so great was its yearning that I one day said, “Do you know, Little One, what you must do to satisfy this yearning of yours?”
“Oh, what, God? What? I’ll do anything!” The little soul said.
“You must separate yourself from the rest, of us,” I answered, “and then you must call upon yourself the darkness.’
“What is the darkness, o Holy One?” the little soul asked.
“That which you are not,” I replied, and the soul understood.
And so this the soul did, removing itself from the All, yea, going even unto another realm. And in this realm the soul had the power to call into its experience all sorts of darkness. And this it did.
Yet in the midst of all the darkness did it cry out, “Father, Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Even as have you in your blackest times. Yet I have never forsaken you, but stand by you always, ready to remind you of Who You Really Are; ready, always ready, to call you home.
Therefore, be a light unto the darkness, and curse it not.
And forget not Who You Are in the moment of your encirclement by that which you are not. But do you praise to the creation, even as you seek to change it.
And know that what you do in the time of your greatest trial can be your greatest triumph. For the experience you create is a statement of Who You Are—and Who You Want to Be.
Book 3
Do you remember the parable of The Little Soul and the Sun that I gave you in Book 1?
Yes.
There is a second half to that parable. Here it is:
“You may choose to be any Part of God you wish to be,” I said to the Little Soul. “You are Absolute Divinity, experiencing Itself. What Aspect of Divinity do you now wish to experience as You?”
“You mean I have a choice?” asked the Little Soul. And I answered, “Yes. You may choose to experience any Aspect of Divinity in, as, and through you.”
“Okay,” said the Little Soul, “then I choose Forgiveness. I want to experience my Self as that Aspect of God called Complete Forgiveness.”
Well, this created a little challenge, as you can imagine. There was no one to forgive. All I have created is Perfection and Love.
“No one to forgive?” asked the Little Soul, somewhat incredulously. “No one,” I repeated. “Look around you. Do you see any souls less perfect, less wonderful than you?”
At this the Little Soul twirled around, and was surprised to see himself surrounded by all the souls in heaven. They had come from far and wide throughout the Kingdom, because they heard that the Little Soul was having an extraordinary conversation with God. “I see none less perfect than I!” the Little Soul exclaimed. “Who, then, shall I have to forgive?”
Just then, another soul stepped forward from the crowd. “You may forgive me,” said this Friendly Soul. “For what?” the Little Soul asked. “I will come into your next physical lifetime and do something for you to forgive,” replied the Friendly Soul.
“But what? What could you, a being of such Perfect Light, do to make me want to forgive you?” the Little Soul wanted to know. “Oh,” smiled the Friendly Soul, “I’m sure we can think of something.”
“But why would you want to do this?” The Little Soul could not figure out why a being of such perfection would want to slow down its vibration so much that it could actually do something “bad.”
“Simple,” the Friendly Soul explained, “I would do it because I love you. You want to experience your Self as Forgiving, don’t you? Besides, you’ve done the same for me.”
“I have?” asked the Little Soul. “Of course. Don’t you remember? We’ve been All Of It, you and I. We’ve been the Up and the Down of it, and the Left and the Right of it. We’ve been the Here and the There of it, and the Now and the Then of it. We’ve been the Big and the Small of it, the Male and the Female of it, the Good and the Bad of it. We’ve all been the All of It. “And we’ve done it by agreement, so that each of us might experience ourselves as The Grandest Part of God. For we have understood that. ... “In the absence of that which You Are Not, that Which You ARE, is NOT.
“In the absence of ‘cold,’ you cannot be ‘warm.’ In the absence of ‘sad,’ you cannot be ‘happy,’ without a thing called ‘evil,’ the experience you call ‘good’ cannot exist. If you choose to be a thing, something or someone opposite to that has to show up somewhere in your universe to make that possible.” The Friendly Soul then explained that those people are God’s Special Angels, and these conditions God’s Gifts. “I ask only one thing in return,” the Friendly Soul declared. “Anything! Anything,’ the Little Soul cried. He was excited now to know that he could experience every Divine Aspect of God. He understood, now, The Plan.
“In the moment that I strike you and smite you,” said the Friendly Soul, “in the moment that I do the worst to you that you could ever imagine—in that self-same moment.., remember Who I Really Am.’ “Oh, I won’t forget!” promised the Little Soul. “I will see you in the perfection with which I hold you now, and I will remember Who You Are, always.”
