Where is God in suffering?
“Only God could help me face and heal from that trauma”
TORONTO, ON—Axel Kazadi’s crisis of faith came to a head when seven friends were tragically killed in a bus accident.
Born into a Christian family in the Congo D.R, Kazadi says he brought with him a rich religious upbringing when he moved to Canada at the age of 12.
“I truly believed,” Kazadi explains. But throughout his high school years he felt his faith waver, and it became an “off-again, on-again” relationship.
Then in 2008, during his senior year in high school, tragedy struck. The school’s basketball team was returning home from a tournament when the bus hit black ice. Only a few minutes from home in Bathurst, New Brunswick, the bus began to skid into on-coming traffic and was struck by a semi-truck. Seven of Kazadi’s friends died in the crash.
“After hearing the news I was devastated,” says Kazadi. “I started questioning God, “Why would such a thing happen?”’
The event brought Kazadi to the lowest point of his life, leaving him depressed and confused.
“I was in a dark place,” he says. “The fear of death gripped me.”
His thoughts turned oppressive; his friends were gone and he felt there was no one to turn to. Yet he says even in that spiritual darkness he could feel God calling him.
“I don’t know how to describe it; I had reached a dark place, yet God was saying it’s time to come back to your first love,” he says.
It was when he heard a sermon on depression and death that things began to change. Feeling the Holy Spirit speaking to him in the service, Kazadi says he suddenly felt a peace of mind come over him.
It was the beginning of a three-year journey to overcome the psychological scars from the crash, but he credits God for being there in the midst of his suffering, and helping him overcome.
“God is the only one who could have helped me, human efforts were only Band-Aids,” Kazadi explains. “Only God could help me face and heal from that trauma.”
Afterwards, Kazadi was left with a burning desire to know God better, and received his undergraduate education in pastoral ministry from Kingswood University. He is now studying at Tyndale Seminary to receive his Masters in Theology.
“If God is real, and God created life, I needed to learn who this God was, why he created us and why there is life,” Kazadi explains. “One cannot talk about life without talking about God, who is the giver of life.”
His long-term goal is to teach theology, and earn his PhD from the University of Toronto. Currently in his final year at Tyndale, he is working on his major research paper, dealing with the question of whether God is able to suffer relationally with His people.
He hopes to address the question, “why is there suffering in the world, and does it negate God’s existence?” Because through his own suffering, Kazadi says he has come to believe that the one who endures suffering longs for life, and only God brings that life.
“You learn so much through suffering, life becomes richer,” he says. “You can only know joy truer through enduring hardship and overcoming.”
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