I Don’t Understand

“Lord, why?â€

Through sobs, I’ve asked this question many times. I asked it while looking at a baby in her casket.

I asked it when a vibrant seventeen-year-old girl from our church died the night after she and my sister graduated from high school.

I asked it when an always-healthy childhood friend died of skin cancer at age thirty-three.

Again and again, I asked it after my father, a minister, died when I was sixteen and my sister was eleven. Although I’ve nearly drowned in grief, God has never answered my question of “Why?†I grieve without that answer.

Strangely, because I’m a minister’s daughter, people think I have ALL the answers. They ask me extremely hard questions, as if I have God completely figured out. I explain there is so much about God and His ways I don’t understand.

For instance, I don’t understand why there has been so much evil in the world since Adam and Eve disobeyed God. I don’t understand why slavery was ever permitted to exist anywhere. I don’t understand why some children are born into loving homes and others into abusive homes. I don’t understand why hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes have to cause so much destruction and death.

And I sure don’t understand why my father and other young people die. My soul screams for answers that never come. However, I have found a way to climb out of the deep, deep pain. I have found hope. It is to cling to Jesus, His word, and my grieving family—to trust and love Jesus, the One who was born into our broken world, suffered for us on the cross, and beat death when He rose from the grave—even when I don’t understand. • Kathy Irey

• When have you been in a situation you did not understand? How did you pray? Is there any suffering we can’t bring before Jesus (Hebrews 4:14-16)?

• How did that experience enable you to help someone else going through unexplainable heartbreak?

• In Christ, suffering will not have the last word (Revelation 21:1-5). How can this truth comfort you when you don’t have the answers you long for?

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. Psalm 34:18 (NLT)

Read Verses:

Job 40:1-2; 2 Samuel 18:33-19:4; John 11:14-36