God's Presence in our Pain

This morning I was reading Genesis about Hagar. God intervened in her life when she’d given up all hope…and when things seemed impossible, that’s where God worked a miracle and made a way for her and her son.

I read a quote by someone recently who was talking about Hagar’s story, and it was so good: “We may not know God’s plan for our pain until heaven, but we can be assured, as Hagar was: He sees us and loves us.”

I thought about my sister, Grace, who has gone through unimaginably hard health trials, when I read that. There are so many times throughout these past two and a half years where my heart just breaks when I think about all my sister has and is going through, and I think, “God, what are you doing? How is this good?”

I don’t know—and I may not know until I can ask God one day in eternity. But. Just because God may not give me the answers I want now doesn’t mean it’s not okay to wrestle with them.

Because when we wrestle with the toughest questions life can throw at us, something happens: We learn that this life is not easy and that living in it means that we will hurt and break and wonder why. But it also means we’ll learn. We’ll grow. We’ll find God in places we never thought He’d be in—in our pain, our suffering, our questions, our wonderings.

God’s with us in those places. And even if the pain we experience isn’t good, God will bring something good out of it.

That’s how God works. And even though I may not always understand His plan…I know still, deep down beneath the hurt and questions, that God is still good: and I’m looking for His goodness in the hard places. Because without Him, I can’t do this. But with Him…I know I’ll make it somehow, someway.

God’s with you in whatever you’re facing today. Even if you can’t feel Him, He’s ever close. He doesn’t waste pain. He doesn’t waste hard times. He uses them—and in the end, we can comfort others with the same comfort He gives to us. And in the end, we’re more like Him…our Savior who knows suffering, who still chose to bear the nail scars on His hands and His feet, even after He was resurrected.

He bore His scars even when He didn’t have to so that we don’t have to bear ours alone.

-Catie