Suffering, Scripture, and Comfort

I have a friend who will probably die of brain cancer. She is a radiant woman, an athlete, an amazingly talented cook, a gifted writer and editor, a loving wife and joyful mother of two young boys. She is exuberant and energetic. Her smile is warm, her sense of humor sharp. She is thirty-seven.

Her cancer has been compared to a rhinocerous—slow-moving but causing tremendous damage as it goes.

I know that God can heal her and that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of us are praying for Him to do so.

I also know that God may not heal her. I know it deep in my bones.

My dad died at thirty-seven, leaving my sisters fatherless at three and five, my stepmom widowed at thirty-two. I was sixteen. My stepmom lasted three years on her own before taking her own life. As Fantine sings in the song “I Dreamed a Dream” in Les Miserables, “There are dreams that cannot be, and there are storms we cannot weather.” My stepmom could not weather that loss.

So I do know deep in my bones that God does not always heal in this world, does not always arrange the “happy” that we wish for.

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When we are faced with things like this, with realities that have us crying at three in the morning, sometimes during the bright daylight hours Christians quote Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”   

I have hated that verse. For a long stretch of years, it would send me into a cold, wordless rage. It felt like I was being offered a Band-Aid for a sucking chest wound.

I’ve mellowed a bit in recent years, although I still think that verse should be handled very, very carefully.

God’s grace has been poured out over my life and my sisters’ lives. My sisters were taken in by an amazing adoptive family that, even in my angriest prodigal days, I could only ascribe to God’s grace. He has brought us healing and amazing gifts. He has restored the years that the locusts have eaten (Joel 2:25). So this is not a post to doubt His faithfulness or His love.

But all that grace, all that healing—and it is considerable—does not undo the wound. My sisters were still orphaned. It has taken over twenty years to reach a point where my dad’s death during my teen years is not the overwhelming, defining event of my life.

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People sometimes say, “We just have to trust that this is all part of God’s plan.”

Mmm . . . not sure I believe that.

God is all-powerful. God is loving. God has given us free will. We live in a world with good and evil, and they are often in battle, watched (or ignored) by a big audience of obliviousness and indifference.

He works things together for good; I’m not convinced that means He plans every bit of suffering. (Although I’m open to pursuasion, if my position has you squirming.)

(Here’s a joke from my worship pastor: “What did the Calvinist say after he fell down the stairs? ‘I’m glad that’s over with!’”)

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When I’m wrestling with grief, Romans 8:28 is a verse that takes me a long time to come around to. Early in the process, I prefer Romans 8:38–39: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Did you catch that? Death cannot separate me from God’s love. Not my death. Not my dad’s. Not my stepmom’s suicide. Not my friend’s (possible) impending, untimely separation from her husband and sons.

In my grief, I may feel like I’ve been cut off from His love. But let’s look again at Romans 8.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (vv. 35–39)

Now that’s medicine for a sucking chest wound.

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So tell me . . . What passage of Scripture do you turn to when you need God’s comfort?