unanswered questions // Monday E-Devotion

Driving home from our thanksgiving trek to see family, my phone rang and began my heart and my mind racing. One of our church leader's children has taken his own life. No answers. Yes, there had been problems. No words to fill in the blanks. God is the only place.

In the last two days I have experienced a family torn apart with lots of unanswered questions, and all I can say is, "we need God." He is our comfort and hope. He is our helper and friend. He is our patience and peace. God not only offers those things to us, His children, but He is those things to us. We have to get a grip on that.

James 5:11 (nlt) --- We give great honor to those who endure under suffering. For instance, you know about Job, a man of great endurance. You can see how the Lord was kind to him at the end, for the Lord is full of tenderness and mercy.

That verse came to my attention just before Thanksgiving, and I kept it close in my e-mail inbox until this morning. Until God began to talk to me about unanswered questions. Suffering is real and stinks. The pain is not only real but is shared by so many people.

Yet God is calling us to endure, to trust Him and let His tenderness and His mercy be so very real in the middle of unanswered questions.

What are you going through? You may have a friend, a co-worker, or a family member headed down a path of pain that needs this word. God is real when unanswered questions are all over us. God is God all the time and willing to hold us tight and love us through it all. That love comes through knowing Him, through friends, through prayer and even in the depths of the pain.

2 Corinthians 1:4 (nlt) --- He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.

Psalm 31:14 (nlt) --- But I am trusting you, O Lord,saying, "You are my God!"

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