When There are no Answers

Day after day, we watched my mother waste away while the tumors in her body grew. The tumor on her neck seemed to be some sort of monster, feeding off her and as she grew thinner, the monster grew more pronounced. In the end, all that was left was a skeletal shell of the mother I loved and this large thriving monster jutting out of her neck and abdomen.

Why? Why does God allow suffering? My mother had been abused as a child and teen, married an alcoholic man to escape the life she had, only to be thrust into a different type of nightmare. She raised three children by herself and often recreating the same dysfunction she was raised with. 

Even after my mother came to know Christ, she struggled for all of her life, trying to fight against the inner voices that told her she was worthless and not enough. Unfortunately, that was passed on to me and my two siblings. 

And sometimes I ask why? Couldn't God have miraculously healed my mother of not just her physical cancer, but the inner struggles? 

Why does God allow suffering? Why does He not instantly and completely heal my friend who struggles a year later with the effects of Covid? Why is the 5-year-old grandson of a friend dying from a brain tumor? Why do loved ones struggle with anxiety and depression? Why does evil seem to prevail?

I don't know the answers. And the pat Sunday School answers that so many want to give don't help. Things like "God never gives us more than we can handle." or "We just need to trust." or quoting verses. 

It's okay to not know. It's okay to just sit in silence with someone and let them know you are there for them. It's okay to tell God, "I don't understand why you are letting this happen and I'm not okay with it!"

God can handle it. He won't crush you if you get angry with Him. You won't hurt His feelings. And the person you are trying to comfort will probably appreciate you sitting with them and not trying to fix their problem. 

Because often we want a quick fix to these hard things. We are uncomfortable with grief and heart-broken anger and long-term depression. We want to say, "Okay, enough is enough." "Get over it already." But there are no instant get-over-its to the ugly and hard and evil things in life. It takes time and often there is raw emotion.

And again, God can handle it. I read a quote by Matt Bay last night that addressed what we often go through. It says, "Sometimes it feels as if God has invited himself into my pain, when I had hoped to be invited into his healing. We want a God who heals our wounds, but it seems we have a God who heals our hearts."

So no, there are no easy answers. I don't know why God miraculously heals some and lets others go through the pain and suffering. I don't know why and it's okay to not know why.

I'm still struggling with so much grief and depression and even anger at my mother's passing. I feel abandoned some days. I lost a grandmother and mom this past year. My mom was the link between me and my stepdad who had dementia so in a way I feel like I lost him too. So many days I feel alone in my sorrow. I don't feel like I can talk about it because I see the frozen looks that come over people's faces. It's like they are inwardly rolling their eyes and thinking, "Is she still talking about this?"

But I'm not alone. God is sitting beside me, rubbing His hand along my back. He isn't giving me pat answers. He isn't quoting scripture at me. He is present and often sits in silence with me, letting me process it in my own time. He sheds tears with me.

So I don't have the answers and God doesn't always give us the answers. But He is in the process of healing the wound. He is sitting beside us in our hurt. He is in the long-term process of healing our hearts.