Not this way LORD…

My daughter has a mental disorder that has afflicted her since she was around 6 years old. She has gone through seasons where it is kept at bay, and she does well. She has also gone through seasons including the one she is in now where it is severe and at its worst has kept her from doing activities she once enjoyed including attending school last spring.

As her mom, I have hated watching her struggle and go through the pain and mental anguish her disorder brings. It has brought me to tears more than once and broken my heart to see her cry wanting it to go away. A few weeks ago, I cried as I sang in church feeling a heavy burden of sadness encompassing me and grieving the joy that had been stolen from my daughter.

Perhaps you can relate. Whether it is a learning disability or a major health issue your child faces, I am sure you also have had days when you simply wonder and perhaps question why God would allow this suffering in your child’s life. Perhaps you have been angry with God at times or spent thousands of dollars for a treatment that failed (as I have). Maybe you have cried at night longing for the day your child can simply just be a child again.

Which brings us to the question: Why does a good God allow our children to suffer?

Now, before you think I am going to answer the problem of evil in the world and why children get cancer and such… hold on. I don’t know the answers to all of those questions, and I most certainly don’t know your situation and the reasons behind your child suffering. What I do know are some of the lessons I have learned in watching my own daughter suffer and the peace and wisdom God has given me that I feel compelled to share so that others may hold onto these things as they trust God through their own child’s time of trying.

1. So that they might know HIM

It was interesting to me that my daughter said she had started praying to know God better before her condition was at its most severe.

Pain has a way of helping block out the distractions of life and brings us to a place where we will finally turn to the Only One who can truly help us when everything else we trusted in failed. Mom can’t fix it. Dad can’t fix it. Sometimes even the doctors can’t help. But GOD is still there and is waiting for our children to find Him in the Word and to have their own relationship with Him, not a relationship where Mom is the mediator or Dad sends up the prayers but instead their own heart relationship with the One who created them and delights in them.

In fact it was in the midst of a severe trial where Paul learned to rely on God instead of himself :

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”

2 Corinthians 1:8-9

In my despair, I have sat with the LORD and tried to process why He would allow this pain in my daughter’s life. I felt the LORD remind me that I have prayed for my daughter to really know Him since she was first conceived, not just know about Him. I want her to have a loving relationship with the LORD where she goes to Him for everything and truly loves Him and receives His love for her.

Did I question the tool He might use to bring my daughter to that place of intimacy and dependence upon Him? Did I want to pray for my children to know Him but without all of the suffering and pain that would truly help them get to this place?

I sat and remembered the many years of my personal suffering from a mental disorder. It was in that awful place that I truly sought the LORD, that I saw Him sustain me and learned the power of His WORD, that I needed Him desperately. And it was in my deepest, darkest pit where I saw Him miraculously heal and restore me.

I learned that He was my Father, not because someone told me that but because I saw Him love me as a Father. I learned that He was my Provision, not because I sang it in a song but because I saw Him give me strength on my weakest days. I learned that He was my Healer because when I couldn’t heal myself and was finally broken enough to humble myself and ask for His help, He graciously reached down and healed me.

Do we want this for our children? Do we want them to know His power from words on a page or from up close personal experiences with our LORD that will help to cement their faith and provide a strong foundation for all of the storms they will face in this life?

How often us parents want our children to know the LORD but we don’t want the tools He may use to bring them to that point. We want them to have strength, resiliency, and character but we don’t want the trials He may use to develop those things. Or at least I don’t…

2. To Develop Character & Compassion

What kind of person would our child grow into if they never had to suffer or have trials of their own?

A person who lacked compassion, understanding, and was totally unrelatable to others hindering God’s ability to use them for His glory and plan for their lives.

My daughter has been blessed with intellect and maturity from a very young age. She does well in school and makes friends often. If she had never had to suffer or experience her trials, it would be very hard for her to have compassion for others. She would find it hard to relate to another’s suffering or to empathize with those who are hurting. Worse yet, she may grow into a very judgmental young adult who looked down on others as weak or perhaps not favored by God as she watched them struggle.

God can and will use these times of hardship in our children’s lives to help them become more like Jesus. They will learn to have compassion for others, to be moved in heart to attend to other’s needs, to develop resiliency and dependence upon the LORD.

Let’s face it. Like my former pastor often says, our children are born knowing how to sin. They don’t have to be taught how to look out for their own needs and wants or how to insist on getting their way. They do have to be taught however love for each other that comes from an unselfish heart and how to keep walking by faith when their circumstances don’t reflect the goodness of God or their desired outcomes. They have to learn compassion for others by going through their own pain so that they will be moved when they see others in need.

“And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.”

Romans 5:2-5

So what is a parent to do as they watch their child go through these times of trial?

We are to cry out to the LORD and pray for our child not only that they will be healed but that they will come to know HIM. We are to talk to the LORD daily about our despair or sadness, our own grief so that HE can give us the strength we need to continue to encourage our child. We are to point our child to the LORD and HIS WORD and HIS PROMISES writing them on lunch notes, reminding them of GOD’s Truth over their feelings.

And ultimately, we are to trust the LORD. Our children are not our own. They belong to the LORD who made them and has graciously given us them to raise and enjoy. He knows what lies ahead for them. He knows what they need to be prepared and equipped to be the strong man or woman of GOD in the days ahead. We have to allow Him to refine where needed and to ultimately help our children grow in dependence upon HIM. We have to continue to hold fast to the promise that God will work all things for the good of our child including painful trials and times of hardship.