Wait for the Lord

So, our team went to do hospital ministry (praying for the sick) and eventually we ended up in the children’s ward. The children’s ward is always a difficult place for me to be.  Seeing the sick and hurting is always difficult, and even more so when it is babies who are the ones hurting. I find myself asking, “Why, God??” a lot.

Summer and I stopped beside a lady who was sitting on the floor holding what I believed was a newborn baby. We learned that the baby was actually 13 months old, severely dehydrated and malnourished. I stared at this tiny, gaunt little one and thought about how she should be outside running around like the other children, laughing and playing games and having fun. But there she was—cradled in her mama’s arms, looking so hopeless and helpless. We prayed for her healing, but all I could think was, “Why, God? I don’t understand this.”

We joined our team as they stood praying by another bed. The toddler in that bed was burnt from head-to-toe, a container of butter sitting by her bed. “This would not happen in America. This should not happen anywhere.” I looked around the room, seeing all the hurt and sickness and tears. “Where are you in all this, God? Why have you left these children to hurt? What kind of God are you?”

Sick babies have broken my heart numerous times in the past, and in that hospital room God broke my heart again. Faces –from that day and from the past—ran through my mind as I stood there sobbing. The suffering was overwhelmingly saddening, confusing, maddening.. you feel helpless, and hopeless. But in all honesty, there are no words that can explain how your heart feels when it breaks like God’s does.

Where is grace in a malnourished baby? What is the purpose in a 4-year-old dying of a brain tumor? How are head-to-toe burns on a toddler evidence of God’s love? Where is God in these moments? And how can I still believe that He is good?

I have struggled with these kind of questions for years, and part of me fears I always will struggle with the “Why?” of it all. You can tell me that God works all things for good, but at the end of the day when I see these faces in my mind, I can’t help but wondering, “Why this way God? Isn’t there another way?”
As frustrating as it is to hear sometimes, the answer is that we will never have the answer to these kind of questions until that day we see His face. I don’t understand why God allows what He allows, but this I do know: the sufferings that happen in this life don’t make God bad. Our God does not turn His back on our suffering, but instead chooses to sit next to us and endure it with us. And that… that is what makes Him good.
 
“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” –Psalm 27:13-14