Where is God in the Pain

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Everything does NOT happen for a reason

A friend of mine has stage 4 cancer.

She is young. Far too young for words like "terminal" or "palliative" or "time-limiting." She still believes in miracles. She still prays, she still hopes.

And honestly? So do I.

But somewhere underneath the prayer sits the aching question none of us can escape.

Why does a young woman get a killer cancer while others live long and uncomplicated lives?

Why do children suffer?

Why do good people bury the people they love?

Why does healing come to some and not to others?

Why do some of the most unhealthiest people we know avoid any ill health?

When I was in the hospital for 10 weeks, I had many well-meaning visitors, but there were also some moments when the discomfort of the conversation about suffering led to a rush of phrases like "it's a mystery" or "everything happens for a reason." I found these to be conversation stoppers.

Sometimes we turn God into something transactional—a cosmic slot machine. Pray enough or believe enough, insert the right spiritual coins, and maybe healing will drop out.

But God is not a machine and suffering is not evidence of spiritual failure.

If it were, then what do we do with the countless faithful people who still suffer?

Somewhere along the way parts of modern faith has become obsessed with the answers

as though enough faith can insulate us from the fragility of being human.

Does believing enough to claim healing not just then become an unhealthy toxic positivity?

I do not believe God authors cancer. And I don't believe God carefully selects tragedies as lessons.

I certainly do not see a loving father in heaven distributing suffering as punishment

The evidence in the world doesn't show us that.

I think we live in a fractured world.

I wonder if a world shaped by greed, environmental destruction, violence, stress, inequality, trauma, genetics, randomness, and humanness will fail.

We have created systems that wound people every day - physically, emotionally spiritually.

Creation itself groans.

And inside that groaning God does not stand pulling levers

I believe God sits right beside us, weeping in our pain.

Beside the hospital bed in the long dark night when we can't sleep.

beside the scared child exposed to harm and violence

God is right there feeling the pain too.

God is not orchestrating the pain- I don't even believe he is allowing it -(that makes him equally cruel if he can stop it singlehandedly and doesnt)

Maybe the miracle we overlook while searching for the bigger ones is that despite the pain, God's love remains very, very present through the tender nurse's care, the family staying through the night, the friend who buys just the right pajamas, the coffee buddy turning up with the latte.

the tea time phone call every night from the faith full friend and the porter who holds your hand when you are scared of the next invasive procedure.

Through all of this journey I have come to believe and experience this,

Gods presence is felt closer with the suffering that with the powerful,

Closer to the grieving than the triumphant,

closer in the hospital room than on the stage lights.

And if my friend dies, I will still not believe God failed in his miracles.

Because his miracles where present every day where love was present

And perhaps that is holier than certainty ever was

An Irish blessing to finish

May you know that love is never absent

for wherever kindness is given, courage is shown, or a hand reaches for another in the dark,

there is the heart of God

and when suffering raises questions with no easy answers,

may we find comfort in this:

that love remains,

and where love is, goodness still grows

may peace, hope and love follow us all on our journeys