Where is God when things hurt us badly?

Theresia hugged her knees. "It hurts," she said again.
"Why has God abandoned us?" Gregor asked.
Dietrich tried to pry Theresia's arm loose so he could lance the last pustule. He did not think that it mattered. "God will never abandon us," he insisted, "but we may abandon God."
The mason swept his arm wide, relinquishing his grip on Theresia's shoulder. "Then where is He in all this?" he shouted. Theresia flinched at the bellow and he immediately took a more tender note and stroked her hair with his great stubby fingers.
Dietrich thought of all the reasoned arguments, of Aquinas and the other philosophers. He wondered how Joachim would have answered. Then he thought that Gregor did not need an answer, did not want an answer, or that the only answer was hope. Michael Flynn, Eifelheim. New York: Tor, p. 297.

"Katherine," Roche called.
. . . "What is it?" she demanded.
He looked at her solemnly. "We must not give up hope," he said.
"Why not?" she burst out. "We're up to eighty-five percent, and we haven't even got started. The clerk is dying, Rosemund's dying, you've all been exposed. Why shouldn't I give up hope?"
"God has not abandoned us utterly," he said. "Agnes is safe in His arms."
Safe, she thought bitterly. In the ground. In the cold. In the dark. She put her hands up to her face.
"She is in heaven, where the plague cannot reach her. And God's love is ever with us," he said, "and naught can separate us from it, neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor things present -- "
"Nor things to come," Kivrin said.
"Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature," he said. He put his hand on her shoulder, gently, as if he were anointing her. "It was his love that sent you to help us."
She put her hand up to his where it rested on her shoulder and held it tightly. "We must help each other," she said. Connie Willis, Doomsday Book. New York: Bantam, 1992, p. 381.

These were, and are, important science-fiction novels. Eifelheim was a nominee for the Hugo Award in 2007. Doomsday Book won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. Although both are clearly legitimate science fiction works, the crisis of faith posed by the title of this post is a central part of each book, and, in both cases, one of the things that hurts badly is the black plague in Europe of the 1300s. They both present answers. In Eifelheim, it is God's love, expressed through the unselfish love of fellow creatures, hope of heaven, and hope of ultimate redemption. In Doomsday Book, it is God's love, and that love expressed through the unselfish love of fellow creatures.

Thanks for reading.

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January 8: I have received some comments, for which I am grateful. I have responded to one of those comments in this subsequent post (which includes the entire comment), and to another.

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Added Jan 21, 2008: I have come to see that there is a serious omission in my musing on this subject, which I have attempted to repair with a fourth post on the subject.