Help!
When I heard Bobby’s desperate scream from his room, fear shot through my heart. I couldn’t get to him fast enough.
My ten-year-old son had fallen on top of a folding chair, which then collapsed onto his right thumb and held it in a crushing vise grip.
The paralyzing pain made it impossible for Bobby to lift himself off the chair and free himself from the pain.
I rushed to Bobby, snatched him up, and gasped.
What once was a thumb now appeared to be a short, flat, bleeding spatula.
His thumbnail split down the middle and gushed blood. His flesh pushed up through the crack in his nail.
Don’t faint, Jean. And certainly not onto Bobby.
I staggered to the phone and called my good friend and pediatrician Lynn.
She decoded my plea for help and said, “Jean, you need to calm down. And you need to squeeze his thumb to stop the bleeding.”
Squeeze Bobby’s crushed, bleeding, pain-inflicted thumb? Seriously?
I took a deep breath and followed her orders. And I prayed a desperate prayer.
“Lord, do you see my son? He needs You. Now! Help him, please.”
The bleeding stopped. The pain didn’t. But eventually, Bobby’s thumb healed, and life moved on.
But that’s not always the case.
When Our Desperate Needs Won’t Go Away
My friend Callie texted me one morning with a plea of desperation.
“Please pray for Elijah. He is in terrible pain this morning. Moaning and crying. My heart is breaking.”
I cried for my dear friend and her 10-year-old son.
Elijah had been experiencing debilitating pain. For over 30 excruciating days. And the doctors didn’t know why.
“Lord, do You see Callie’s son? Do you see Elijah?”
History and God’s Word proves God sees, and He cares. Our present circumstances sometimes seem to challenge the Truth, but the Truth remains.
Even if God doesn’t remove our desperate need the moment we pray, He sees, and He cares. We can trust Him. He knows what He’s doing.
God Delivers Them From All Their Troubles
Sometimes we read the Psalmist’s words and question them:
The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.
— Psalm 34 :17
Really? God delivers them from ALL their troubles?
Our rescue doesn’t always come when and how we want. But it comes. God never fails.
As humans, we can’t help but be short-sighted. We can’t see the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46 :10). We can’t see all the moving—and immovable—parts.
All we see is the small picture in front of us and what we’ve learned. And what screams at us.
As Bobby screamed, I couldn’t see anything but his pain and my plea. I couldn’t see the Lord’s help in the moment.
What we can’t see with our physical eyes, we have to trust with our spiritual eyes. Our help and hope are secure, not in who we are, but in who God is.
My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.
— Psalm 121:2
And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You.
— Psalm 39:7
Stand on God’s Character
When it seems God isn’t meeting your desperate need, remember who He is. Don’t lose sight of God or His unchanging character.
We’ll never understand all His ways or thoughts in this life. But we can always trust them (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Don’t walk away from God in your desperate need. You may be hurt and angry. He knows, and He’s okay with raw emotion. Run to Him with it.
You can trust Him. You can trust His character.
This single unchangeable Truth has held me up when my circumstances threatened to crush me down. It will hold you, too. Don’t let go.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
— Psalm 34 :18
Because we can trust God, we can say as Jesus did as He faced the cross:
Not my will but Yours be done.
— Luke 22 :42
Even if God doesn’t remove our circumstance in the fires of our pain and fear, we can trust in Him.
We can hold on. He will deliver us.
I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the LORD.
— Psalm 27 :13-14
Callie didn’t despair. She cried out in heartbreak. But she didn’t despair. Neither did young Elijah. Today, he’s healthy and free of pain.
They still don’t know what caused Elijah’s pain, but they know without question the faithfulness of God. They trusted in it even when Elijah wasn’t healed. And God held them through it all.
MercyMe’s Song of Hope “Even If”
In their song Even If, the band MercyMe shares a powerful message of hope we all need to hear and remember.
Even if we must wait on the Lord, we never wait in vain.
When our hope is in God, our help is on the way. It will be well with our soul. Amen.
For a list of the character traits of God, Click Here or on the image below. I’ll continue to add more to the list, so check back.
What about the children we see on tv ads with painful cancer that eventually die – apainful death?
Thank you for this question, Don! The suffering of children is absolutely devastating. Seeing anyone we love suffering is hard to bear or understand, but children suffering is the hardest to wrap our brains around. We know from God’s Word that the answer to all suffering is that we live in a fallen world, which is suffering the curse of sin. Even children suffer this curse since all humans are born with sin as a result of the fall. No one is immune.
The comfort we receive is that God has promised a special grace for children. “Suffer the little children to come unto me, for to such belongs the kingdom of God” (Matt. 19:14). The only way to the Father is through Jesus Christ, and He is the One who said that the kingdom of God belongs to young children. In heaven, they will never again know suffering. In this world, we all must suffer the effects of sin——sickness and disease, weakness, evil, and ultimately death. All humans suffer because of sin in this world. I’m not saying that children are suffering because of their sin but rather because the curse of sin brings suffering to even the youngest and most helpless among us. In the face of this, our comfort comes from keeping our eyes fixed on who God is…the holy and wise God who can do no wrong. We may not be able to understand why He has allowed children to suffer, but we can trust Him even in the face of the most devastating suffering.
In the end, God will make all things new and right all wrongs. I recognize this answer doesn’t comfort those who don’t trust in Christ. It might not even comfort all who do trust in Christ if their view of God is not as crystalized as God has revealed Himself through Christ and His Word. I struggled with the same question you’re asking for years. After much wrestling and searching the Scriptures, I came to the quiet and peace-giving understanding that God is everything He says He is and thus I can fully trust Him for the things I can’t wrap my brain around.
It’s not that God doesn’t care. He hates suffering. He tells us that He takes no pleasure in the death of even the wicked (Ezekiel 33:1-12). It’s easy for us to think that we’d be kinder than God because we would never let children suffer, but I’d be surprised if we could find any say they take no pleasure in the death of evil men like Hitler. God is more kind than we are, but when we see children suffer, it can be hard to believe.
BUT, if God were small enough for us to understand, He wouldn’t be big enough to be God. I imagine some would say this sounds like a convenient cop-out answer. But it’s not. We were created in the image of God, and your deep concern for the suffering reflects His love. I don’t criticize you for feeling anger over suffering. I hate it. God hates it. And yet, He doesn’t stop it all. Yet. He stops it more than we realize. We can be certain of this because if He didn’t, Satan would wreak such havoc on this world that none would survive. We got a glimpse of what he would do through the book of Job. Praise God for His hand of protection over us. God rules even over Satan. This truth can tempt us to condemn God for allowing any children to suffer, but it’s never wise of us to stand in judgment of our holy and pure God, which I’ve done more times than I want to admit. Instead, God wants us to pray for the suffering, ask Him to lead us in how He wants us to help the suffering, and trust Him to be everything He says He is…everything He is. The Great I Am who loves us with a perfect love and will bring an end to suffering one day for all young children and all who have believed in Christ.
I’m so sorry if this answer doesn’t satisfy your aching heart. No answer should make you stop caring for the suffering. God doesn’t want us to say, “Since God is in control, I won’t care about their suffering anymore.” God wants us to trust Him with it and in it. He calls us to trust Him in everything. It’s illogical (and honestly sinful of us) to stand in judgment of Him as if He’s not good enough. That’s the sin Adam and Eve fell for. They didn’t trust Him over fruit. Your concern is for suffering children! I’m grateful for your care, and I encourage you to trust God in and with this awful consequence of the fall. He says that all creation groans waiting for the time when Christ returns and removes the sting of death and curse of sin (Romans 8:22). But until then, we must trust Him in all things. I’ve learned that wrestling with God’s plans fosters humble searching. Wrestling with God’s character fosters unbelief. And unbelief only leads to suffering.
Thank you so much for asking your question!! I’m praying for you that as you wrestle with God over this question, He will reveal Himself to you. Search the Scriptures. Read the Bible. All of it. If you have not trusted in Christ for salvation, I pray God will give you the faith to believe and give you eternal life in Christ. If you have trusted in Christ, I pray that your wrestling over suffering will lead you to a deeper understanding of our great God and bring you peace in Him and move you to even more action for the suffering around you. May we all do this!! Thank you, Don.