Answers
By BGEA Staff • February 3, 2024 • Topics: Aging, Suffering
Q:
I’m despondent about a lingering sickness that has engulfed life for our family. We’ve done all we can to help an elderly member grow old with grace and dignity, but it seems to no avail. There is no joy, no thankfulness, and no gratitude, and I believe this is eating away at our family in a much greater way than the illness. We’re at the end of the line and don’t know what to do, and God doesn’t seem to be attentive to our needs. Why?
A:
From the writings of the Rev. Billy Graham
Many people have gone through seasons of anguish, weighed down beyond measure with heartache and grief and anger, demanding to know why God will not answer their prayers.
God understands our weaknesses. He knows how we are formed and “He remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14, NKJV). We live in a world that is ravaged with sickness, death, and sorrow. This is not how God intended life on Earth to be for His creation.
While it may not be the answer we want, difficult times can point us to the strength of the Lord. We are to have grateful hearts that He will see us through. When we are weary, we can ask the Lord to increase our patience—the ability to bear up under strain and stress that we face in life, particularly when it seems there is nowhere to turn. But we can turn to God!
Someday Christ’s victory will be complete and all this will be changed—but in God’s time. In the meantime, we must put our faith and hope in Him. He knows what it is to suffer. He went to the cross for us. And because He did, we have hope even in the midst of life’s darkest hours.
(This column is based on the words and writings of the late Rev. Billy Graham.)
