For the past several days—almost a week now—we’ve been fighting sickness at our house. Lindsey came down with it first. Upon picking her up from preschool one afternoon, I found that what we had thought were allergy symptoms had been joined by a 101 fever. She’s been feeling ill since then, and my two other girls have come down with “it” as well.
I’ve written before about how when Lindsey’s sick, she likes to cuddle with Mommy. This most recent illness has been no different. She’s wanted to be with me nearly constantly—by my side or in my lap. She’ll even settle for sitting on the floor next to me when she has to, if I’m doing something like preparing dinner. “I just want to be with you,” she says.
But what I haven’t written about before is a thought that occurred to me this time. As I was bringing one of the girls a glass of water and urging her to drink it, I thought about how when kids are sick, they just want their mommies. And about how utterly ridiculous it would be for my kids to refuse to have anything to do with me when they are sick, because they blame me for their sickness.
If my girls had lain there on the couch and turned their faces away from me when I entered the room…if they had refused my ministrations, like bringing medicine or a glass of water…if they had shouted angrily at me that it was my fault they were sick, then refused to talk to me otherwise…not only would they have missed out on my companionship and healing help (thereby causing themselves to suffer more than was necessary in the first place), but I would have felt awful.
Yet we do the same thing to God that would be ridiculous for our children to do to us. We turn from Him in our moments of need. We refuse to have anything to do with Him because we blame Him for the fact that we suffer—or at least for not stopping it.
God, it’s Your fault. You could have prevented this, and you didn’t. I’m angry. Yes, God could prevent anything He wants to prevent. I’ve had terrible things happen in my life that I dearly wish He would have prevented. But it just doesn’t make sense for us to turn away from Him just because He didn’t stop something from occurring. The reason why sin, death, and even illness occur in this world is because of sin. When Adam and Eve first sinned, suffering entered the world. We didn’t live in paradise anymore. We got kicked out, and began suffering all the things that go along with living in a way and in a place God never designed for us to live. The Bible clearly teaches that things won’t be completely right ever again until we reach heaven. We usually don’t have a problem accepting this until suffering impacts us. Then we turn against God for not making everything okay now. We know in advance that there’s suffering in this world. Do we choose to follow God only as long as he keeps suffering away from us? Do we say, in effect, God, it’s fine if you don’t make everything right at this point in time. It’s okay if You wait until heaven. Just make sure that this suffering only applies to other people, or I’m going to be really mad at You.
Precious mom, I’m not trying to make light of your suffering. You may be going through something right now that’s absolutely agonizing. I’ve been through times like that too. And that’s how I can say this, not just because I read it in the Bible somewhere, but because I’ve lived it: turning away from God because He allowed suffering in your life will only make your suffering worse. It will not help you feel better. You will not feel less betrayed, or less angry. You won’t grieve less. Instead, you’ll be lying on the couch suffering worse and longer than you really have to, because you’re turning away from the only source of comfort that truly matters.
You may wonder how you can turn to God when you hurt so badly. How can you accept His loving embrace and open your heart to Him when it seems that doing so will only leave you vulnerable to more hurt in the future? I’ll tell you my answer. It’s the one I’ve learned in my times of suffering. I share it with you not as some expert in how you should feel, but as a fellow sufferer who has at times been deeply grieved by the results of sin in this world. What I’ve learned is that in times of pain, it’s more vital than ever that I remain close to God. And the way to do it is to bring all my pain to Him, sob it out into His lap, and keep doing that every day, and sometimes all day, for as long as you need to. He’s a really big God. He can handle your emotions. Don’t make the mistake I’ve made and think that you have to arrive at a place of accepting your suffering and being okay with it before you can come to God. Nothing could be further from the truth. You need to do exactly the opposite. You should come when you’re not okay, when you hurt so badly you don’t know how you can survive, and when you don’t even know if you want to. Dump everything into His lap and cry. It’s okay to tell Him you don’t understand why He allowed something to happen. He’s not going to zap you with lightning for saying that. He won’t even condemn you for being angry. Yes, if some of your emotions are sinful, He will lovingly help you correct them. But He won’t get offended and walk out on you. He won’t speak harshly to you and kick you out of His presence. No, He’ll do something far different, and far more valuable—something I think most of us don’t realize that He does.
He grieves with us. Precious mom, our God is not some impersonal God Who is unmoved by what happens to us. He doesn’t say, “Good grief, what are you crying about?” He grieves at the consequences of sin, far more even than you and I do. Can you imagine that? God grieves at what happens to you even more than you grieve about it. I’m going to say that again, so it can soak into our hearts and minds:
God grieves over what happens to us even more than you and I grieve about it.
Did you realize that? I didn’t either, until relatively recently. I knew God would comfort me when I grieved, but I never thought about how He grieves with me. And I sure never realized that God’s heart is even more broken about it than mine is.
No, God doesn’t wonder what He’s going to do now, in the aftermath of tragedy, like you and I sometimes do. And no, he doesn’t ever wonder how He’s going to go on, as is perfectly natural for us. But He grieves in a way you and I can’t even begin to understand.
First of all, He’s holy. Sin grieves and offends Him in a way that we, in our sinfulness, will never fully grasp. God hates sin and its consequences far more than we do.
Second, God loves us. You know how you feel when someone else’s sin impacts your child? Well, magnify that by a million, and you get a glimpse of how God feels when someone’s sin impacts you, His child. I remember a time when another child bit my son, leaving teeth marks that lasted for weeks. I was angry. Very angry. I believe this was a righteous kind of anger. The child had sinned, and He had hurt my child. And if I feel this angry when something like this happens, how must God feel when someone’s sin—or simply the nature of a fallen, sinful world—impacts me far more seriously? How must He feel when we suffer serious illness, a friend’s betrayal, or—may He forbid—the loss of a child? I think these tragedies grieve His heart in a way we can only begin to understand.
Why doesn’t God stop certain sins, certain consequences, from happening? I don’t know. But I do know this—God takes no pleasure in sin, and He grieves over it more than I’ll ever know. He grieves with me when something happens to me. And instead of turning away from Him because He didn’t prevent a particular situation, I want to run to the arms of the One who grieves with me, and promises to make everything right one day, even if, for reasons I wouldn’t understand, it can’t be right yet. And I want to look forward to the day and the place where there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. Because while I have no assurance that I won’t suffer in this life before Christ takes me home, I do know that one day, I will suffer no more. And I know that He’ll carry me toward that day, holding me in His arms all the way.
1 Peter 5:7—Cast all your cares on him because he cares for you.
Revelation 21:3-4—And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
Megan Breedlove 
Right now, as I type this, our orange kitten is lying peacefully in his kitty bed next to the desk, purring. He looks sweet and innocent. Calm, even. Peaceful.