Jeff Foxworthy, stand-up comic, says in one of his acts, “I have heard that the number one kind of man women fantasize about is a dangerous man. A sort of 007 kind of man. But in reality, women with dangerous men are on Cops, hanging out of a truck window in a tube top going, ‘You lock him up! You lock his ass up!’”

I write about a world where good always wins, where evil is clear-cut and, well, kind of tame. Like a lion at the zoo. They’re fun to watch, and they’re really cool, but you don’t want to think about what they’d do if they got hold of you. Because the truth is hidden in a glamor of safety.

The Virginia Tech shooting is very recent, and it came during a time when evil had slammed its ugly head into my life — a man decided to practice his cruelty on a friend of mine, torturing her in her own apartment all through the night and attempting to kill her before he left.

At church today, the guest preacher gave a simple and true lesson about how evil is present in the world, but we have hope even in dark times because Christ has overcome evil. He referred to questions of “Why didn’t God stop it [the Virginia Tech massacre]?” with answers I already knew: God has allowed us to choose good or evil in our own lives, and some people choose evil. It’s no more complicated than that.

In my little imaginary world of heroes and villains, evil takes shape in the form of half-baked take-over-the-world plots and cranky old men trying to kill their nemeses. Buildings may crash down, and people may die, but they’re just extras. They aren’t flesh and blood — they walk away from the story complaining about how much squibs hurt and that they got a splinter in that last take, and why hasn’t their agent called about the new contract?

I don’t like to think about real evil. I don’t like to write about it, and I don’t want my readers to have to suffer through it. In my writing, good is always stronger than evil, and evil is just tough enough to put up a flashy show.

In a cosmic, spiritual sense, that’s true as well. Good wins. Evil loses. Christ rose from the dead and said, “Checkmate.”

“In this world you will have tribulation. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

It’s good to know. It’s comforting to know. That, in the end, the good guys will always win. The weak will be protected. The hungry will be nourished. The soul will be at peace.

In the end, evil will no longer be an option.