Where art thou, Deity?

I hear a lot about the existence of a benevolent, just, omnipotent Supreme Being known as "God". Unfortunately, there's scant evidence that this Being actually exists. In fact, there is quite a bit of evidence that He does not, based primarily on the bad things that happen in this world. Most of the usual arguments along these lines focus on people being evil to other people. However, this argument is rebutted by the principle of free will, which argues that God allows people to be nasty to other people so that when people aren't nasty to each other, it actually means something. Other, more rigorous, arguments, pertain to massive disasters like the Asian tsunami. However, I prefer not to focus on events of this magnitude, which pertain to the running of the world; our planet would be in a lot of trouble without natural disasters.

Rather, my arguments pertain to personal, seemingly arbitrary evils. I am not referring to normal everyday hardships here. I am talking about when good people die or get frequently-fatal illnesses for no reason. The day when I renounced my belief in God was 25 October 2002, when Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN), who was at the time my favorite member of the U.S. Senate, was killed in a freak airplane crash which has not been satisfactorily explained (as far as I know, anyway). Obviously my partisanship is showing here, but I think most people could agree that Wellstone was fighting for what he believed to be the right thing and was a basically good person. If there was a positive upshot of this, it has yet to manifest itself.

Obviously, limiting my analysis to public figures has certain flaws; it could be argued that this was due to some kind of "divine plan". I find arguing for a divine plan to be a bit strange, given that the eventual fate of the Universe is to die a slow death from entropy, with nothing but a few scattered photons remaining. I would assume that this is due to the "divine plan", as if a Supreme Being exists, He would have constructed the universe in such a way as to conform to His plan. Therefore, arguing that this is only a means to an eventual happy end seems to be rather odd; if there will be a Golden Age in Earth's history, why can't it just be hastened given that the Earth has a limited lifespan?

However, freak misfortune do not only happen to good public figures. They tend to happen to good normal people, too. I do not like to speak of events that happen with my friends by name out of respect for their privacy, but it was about a year ago when the father of one of my friends died, and it is only just now that I have learned that the mother of another friend has had a ruptured brain aneurysm. I understand and believe that all lifeforms must eventually die. However, there is no reason why people must die before their proper time. I am talking here about people who are younger than what seems to me to be their proper lifespan. It just does not seem fair, or just, or loving - all attributes that are attributed to God. I do not rule out a deistic Creator, that set forth the ground rules for the Universe and then allowed it to proceed as it would (although I prefer the idea of multiple universes). But I find it very hard to support the existence of a personal, loving God that would allow these things.

Well, God, if you exist, I recommend providing me with evidence to that effect. Such as allowing my friend's mom to continue her life. Show me that our prayers are not useless words to make us feel better about a world governed not by equity and justice, but by random chance.