Ruby Ann Kagaoan – Calo
“If it’s true that Jesus sees all our pain, then why does he allow suffering to happen?”
A friend asked me this question in my blog, after she read my story on my son David. She lost her baby girl. This was my reply.
http://rubycalo.wordpress.com/2006/12/26/return-from-heaven/#comment-1047
I have been asked a number of times, “Why did God return your child to you, but not my child? We also prayed hard, but why didn’t God answer our prayers? Why did He answer your prayers?” Such inquiry, from a pained heart, is not easy to reply to, although I do have my answers. Often, I opt to stay quiet and simply empathize with the brokenness of the person asking me. There are moments when giving answers isn’t the answer.
I do have answers to your question. These are conclusions I have arrived at from my own walk with God. I didn’t derive them from someone’s preaching or teaching, but from God’s own dealings with me.
Let me assure you that your baby girl is in heaven, fully alive. And she can see your grieving over her. She saw you crying when you lost her. She feels the pain of your separation from her. As your heart begins to be comforted with the thought that one day, when your journey of faith in God is completed, you will see her again, she, too, will be comforted.
I say these, because this was how my little son David saw me when he stood side-by-side with King Jesus witnessing my weeping and praying so vehemently on the floor of the public hospital’s pediatric ICU ward where he died. He and LORD were moved by my pain, my grief, my anguish, my horror over my son’s death, my prayers.
There are events on earth that happen outside the will of God, but God, in His power, turns things around for those who call on Him for help. He wants us to respond to trials and testings with complete faith in Him, even when the circumstances before our eyes say that we are in a hopeless state. Faith in God will release God’s power and will open the gates of heaven for His mighty angels to execute His will on earth for the person crying out to Him for help.
What we need to be aware of is that in our earthly journey, we can either let the invisible God walk with us or we handle matters by ourselves. God gives us the choice. Our time on earth is the chance of our spirit, mind, and heart to grow in faith in God and in our understanding of Him.
When God allows sufferings to happen, it is for our own sake, to give us the opportunity to trust in Him completely. He never wills for a child not to live life long and to the fullest. I know that for sure. It is God’s will for each person He creates to live life abundantly and fully.
Even amidst the greatest loss, the greatest pain, the greatest rejection, the greatest insult, the harshest beatings, even in death, we can be in perfect peace in God, if we trust Him completely, trust that He is just, trust that He loves us.
I speak from my own walk with God, my own experience of Him. If I am still alive and living in complete joy and peace, it is not because I am not suffering. I am in utter great suffering even as I am writing you now, but I am free, my spirit is free, because I have put my trust completely in God. I have chosen to let Him take care of me.
And although tears flow from my eyes, even just awhile ago, because of my ongoing trials, I am still happy, knowing that God sees all my pain and puts in His bottle all my tears, for He regards each of my tears, He knows all of my sorrows, and I know He is with me all the way.
I walk this journey of life on earth choosing to cling to God each time I am met with trials and pain. For the joy awaiting Him, Christ endured the cross, so it is written in the Book of Hebrews. In the same manner, I endure sufferings and take up my cross each day, every moment, because by doing this, my character is strengthened, and my mind and heart become more and more ready for the wonderful eternity awaiting me, where I shall be with my father and my mother and those whom I love who went ahead of me to heaven.
