For every person who has ever asked the question why? it seems there are a dozen voices that speak out to hush the questioner. Yet for many of us, whether we voice it or not, the pain and suffering of living with cancer draws the nagging why? out into the open.

Few of us ask many questions when life is going well. But when life doesn’t go the way we think it should, when a tragedy befalls us or our loved ones, or when we can’t make sense out of what is happening, the question why? of... (continued)

When she was a young girl, Corrie ten Boom once asked her father a difficult question, the answer for which she would not be able to understand and the reality of which she would not be able to bear. In her book, The Hiding Place, she describes his answer:

He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case from the rack over our heads, and set it on the floor.

“Will you carry i... (continued)

It all began on a bright, sunny, Tennessee day on the campus of Lee College where Matt and I were students. We had been best of friends for several years and, in fact, were part of a close-knit group of guys called “the brotherhood.” That morning, Matt asked if I would run him to the doctor’s office. He’d had a nagging cough for several weeks and wanted to get some medicine to shake it. Neither of us had any idea that that visit to the doctor would lead to a series of tests and x-rays that wo... (continued)

During the birth of our first child, some forty hours into labor, I wanted to hit my husband. Not gently, either. I wanted to blacken his eyes. Every kind, encouraging word he spoke only infuriated me further. Relax? Sure, give me more pain medicine! Calm down? Easy for you to say! My husband didn’t get it. He couldn’t.

And there was no escaping the pain. The drugs only took the edge off. They didn’t stop the labor pains from coming with increasing frequency and intensity. I was on th... (continued)

Only months after burying her husband Richard, and days after burying Nicholle, their fourteen-year-old daughter, LezLee Guy received a call from one of her daughter’s close friends. The teenager shared how several of their mutual friends had drawn closer to God--some had even recommitted their lives to Christ--as a result of Nicholle’s tragic death. Her daughter’s friend was trying desperately to encourage LezLee, to find something redeeming out of such an overwhelming loss. She was looking ... (continued)

Suffering is a mysterious and unwelcome intruder.  No one wants it.  No one fully understands it.  It prompts the question why? like little else.  And for those who believe in a loving God, suffering is particuarly perplexing. 

"Why does a good God allow bad things to happen? we ask. "Why does a loving God allow His children to suffer?" we cry.  These questions have plagued humanity for millennia.  We hear them daily at the Outreach of Hop... (continued)

 Somehow, pain and suffering multiplied on earth as a consequence of the abuse of human freedom. . . . Since the Fall the planet and all its i (more...)

All things work for our good.
Though sometimes we can’t see how they could.
Struggles that break our heart in two
sometimes blind us to t (more...)