gifts-from-god
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Explanation
The Joke
A nun tells her class, "Remember, kids, every day is a gift from God!" A red-haired child angrily challenges this: why did God "gift" her a day where her dog got run over by the ambulance that was too late to save her grandma? God appears (in a thought bubble or divine communication) and explains that He had it narrowed down to either getting her a unicorn or doing the dead dog thing, and figured the dog thing would bring her closer to her mom.
The child, taken aback, admits that it did in fact bring her and her mom closer together. She raises her arms and shouts "Praise the Lord!!" -- seemingly won over by God's reasoning. But God then cheerfully adds, "Yeah, she's gonna need you when your dad gets mauled by a bear" -- revealing that the closeness God engineered was just preparation for yet another upcoming tragedy.
The Humor
The comic satirizes the religious notion that all suffering is part of God's plan and serves a greater purpose. The child presents a scenario that is almost comically awful -- the dog killed by the very ambulance that failed to save grandma -- as a challenge to the idea that every day is a gift. God's response is a perfect parody of theodicy (the attempt to justify God's goodness despite the existence of evil): He frames the tragedy as a deliberate choice that had a positive outcome (family bonding), which sounds almost reasonable for a moment.
The punchline destroys any comfort by revealing that God's "gifts" are an endless chain of escalating tragedies, each one serving only to prepare the recipient for the next catastrophe. The bear mauling is funny because of its casual delivery and because it reveals that God's version of benevolence is essentially a Rube Goldberg machine of suffering. The child's brief moment of faith -- "Praise the Lord!!" -- makes the gut punch even more effective.
References
The comic engages with the problem of theodicy -- the philosophical and theological challenge of reconciling the existence of an omnipotent, benevolent God with the presence of suffering in the world. This has been debated by philosophers and theologians for centuries, from Epicurus to Leibniz (who coined the term "theodicy") to modern philosophers of religion. The common religious response that suffering serves a higher purpose or brings people closer together is exactly what the comic parodies.