In meeting with various individuals, I am learning that one question is being asked more than any other.

“If God loves me so much, why doesn't He make the pain go away?"

I don't know the immediate answer to that question. But, if God is good, then I must believe that any trial that comes my way has a bigger purpose than I realize.

Let me tell you a true story that has helped me to accept pain that I don’t understand.

It happened when our firstborn daughter was only 5 months old. We were on our way to visit a friend one day. It was in the middle of winter. Snow was piled up all over the place. The baby was all wrapped up and just her sparkling eyes and red pug-nose were showing through he hooded bunting bag she was wearing. We loved that baby so much. We felt we could easily die for her to save her life if need be.

Walking towards the house, we discovered that the sidewalk was very slippery. Just before we reached the door of the house, my wife, who was carrying the baby, slipped and fell. It was a nasty fall, and I can see it in slow motion yet. Her feet went out from under her and shot forward. She instinctively clutched the baby close to her, and did not let go. She could have saved herself or at least made the fall a little less painful, but that would have meant dropping the baby in order to minimize her own pain or risk of injury. She landed on hard, jagged ice with a bone-crunching thud right on her hip. It caused her excruciating pain. Upon impact, our baby, who was up until this point in a perfect state of contentment, panicked. Her mouth opened wide with a scream of shock and some pain at being jarred out of her sleepy comfort zone of existence.

What I remember most about that moment was that her scream then turned from pain into anger and was directed at US. She was frightened and angry, and for the life of her, she couldn't understand WHY her parents, from whom she has only known warm fuzzies and overabundant love, would suddenly do this to her! Of course, at that stage in her development, we couldn't explain to her that her Mom absorbed far more pain than the baby could imagine, in order to save the baby from real injury. All the baby knew was what she experienced in her own world.

Although the analogy falls short because God doesn’t have accidents, it is helpful. We often direct our anger and frustration at God, without having a clue about what the Lord might be experiencing. I believe He does experience grief, and certainly the pain and anguish He experienced on the cross is something we can only appreciate from a great distance. Yet He did it for us. I often think that whatever He allows into my life, is something like that fall on the ice. And that perhaps this trial, this particular pain is to prevent me from going in a direction that would be far worse in terms of destruction and damage. And even if I don’t understand it, I can accept it, because I know His intentions towards me are always, without exception, loving and good. Think about it.