The issue of suffering was one that up until a week and a half ago I thought I was intimately acquainted.
People have died in my life. Dreams have died.
I have failed. I have been failed.
But then something happened like nothing has ever happened in my life. My baby brother got sick…he is still sick.
Interestingly enough what I have learned about the Lord in the last week and a half eclipses everything I have learned about Him in the last year and a half.
Or maybe not…maybe the last year and a half was the classroom of the learning and the last week and a half has been the laboratory of learning.
So what have I learned?
God loves us.
I have always known this. I grew up singing about it. “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
While the Bible does tell us, that is not how I know He loves me any longer. I know He loves me because He crawled into my bed with me and held me as I wept as my brother was being air lifted to UAB. I know He loves me because He sent friends from far and wide to stand beside me in some of the darkest, scariest moments my family has ever endured. I know He loves me because His Word was like a healing balm every morning I chose to meet Him there in the midst of the craziness and chaos.
God’s ways are perfect.
Admitedly, this is a hard truth for me to wrap my head around as I sit next to my brother’s hospital bed as he struggles to find a comfortable position while I sit helplessly by, knowing I can’t do anything to help him. This great man, who hovers around 6′4, who can’t stand to be down, is confined to a hospital bed he barely fits on. Even in this, God’s ways are perfect. He has proven that to us in the sovereignty of His calendar, down to the smallest detail.
God’s grace is sufficient.
This is one of those things I have known about God and even at times experienced of Him but I haven’t seen it in action like I have in the last week and a half in my sister-in-law. She has borne this with such grace and clarity, all the while caring for her infant son, if not physically, in her heart. Being present with her husband but having her son always with her in her thoughts. It has been quite remarkable to watch her handle this.
God’s faithfulness is not dependent on our circumstances.
He is faithful always. Whatever it means to be faithful, HE IS, always.
When people die, He is faithful. When people get sick, He is faithful. When life is completely out of control and you have no idea which way is up and which way is down, He is faithful.
And when we believe Him to be faithful even through life’s darkest circumstances, we are made more faithful.
God loves us. God’s ways are perfect. God’s grace is sufficient. God’s faithfulness is not dependent on our circumstances.
Lessons all learned in a new, fresh way while I was becoming more intimately acquainted with suffering.
I’m watching my brother eat a pop-tart with effort and I know this road is not yet over.
Even still, I know in and through this I could have become even more intimately acquainted with suffering and I realize that with all I have learned, I know nothing.




…spontaneously, passionately, unfailingly, unalterably, unconditionally, scandalously, irrationally, sacrificially, relentlessly, undeservedly, perfectly, immeasurably, beautifully, purely, completely.