A couple of Sundays ago, our church sermon centered around suffering…and I could barely keep it together. The timing felt divine, because lately, my heart has been heavy in ways I can’t always explain. The world feels like it’s unraveling, one tragedy after another. My feed has been full of heartbreak: floods in Texas, families shattered, children gone too soon. And while I try to hold space for others, sometimes it brings me right back to my own chapters of grief.
Suffering is deeply personal. It doesn’t always look like crying on the floor. Sometimes, it looks like smiling at your kids when your world is quietly caving in. When Axel was born in 2020 and diagnosed with PKU, I remember feeling like the air had been ripped out of the room. A rare condition that meant he could only eat a few grams of protein a day—and suddenly every meal became a minefield. The fear, the unknown, the guilt—it cracked me open. I grieved the “normal” I thought we’d have. I grieved hard… and for years. More on that later…
Then, there came a season of trying to hold together our household financially. When my full-time business—our family’s livelihood—was ripped out from under us due to corporate restructuring, I had to start over. From scratch. Again. And the weight of it all? Crushing. It was in that space, between heartbreak and survival, that I clung to God with everything I had. Not in a pretty, put-together way. In a desperate, sobbing-on-the-floor kind of way.
This week’s sermon reminded me: God is still in the suffering. Not watching from afar. Not shrugging His shoulders. Present. Near. Holding every moment that’s broken you. He says, “I’ve heard your prayer. I’ve seen your tears. I will heal you” (2 Kings 20:5). “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2). “You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle” (Psalm 56:8). He sees. He stays. He heals.
I used to wonder, “If God is good, why doesn’t He just stop the suffering?” Maybe you’ve asked that too. But the truth is, suffering entered through sin, not His will. And yet, He’s never once left us alone in it. And He promises to restore everything the locusts have eaten (Joel 2:25). That includes our broken finances, our exhausted spirits, our fractured dreams. He’s not just a bystander. He’s the God of restoration.
So if you’re in a season that doesn’t make sense…where it feels like you’re losing more than you’re gaining…I want you to know: I’ve been there. And God hasn’t wasted a single tear. He’s taken every cracked piece of my story and is slowly, beautifully, restoring it. It’s my testimony in progress. But I can promise you, He does come through. He’s doing it for me. And He will for you too.
Bookmark this blog, because we’re diving into what it really means to be wealthy—not just in finances, but in faith, in strength, in peace that passes understanding. Because that kind of wealth? Only comes from Him.
