Why, Lord?

I have a friend who lives in South Africa. I've only met her by email through a mutual friend of ours. I use the term "lives" loosely. You see, she suffers from a very rare illness that attacks the mast cells and tricks her body to think its under attack by everyday, normal things such as food, fragrances, medication, etc. It has literally made her allergic to life itself.

How do you explain the silence of God that leads to Life to someone who cannot figure out why she wakes up in the morning? I cannot attempt to give my friend anything that wouldn't sound as trite as anything else she's heard since the onset of this illness.

Joni Erickson Tada wrote in her book When God Weeps about her wrestling with the big Why, Lord? every morning when she woke up and every night when she closed her eyes (she is quadriplegic). She has learned over time how God has used other people to serve her, and how other people have had their lives changed in big and small ways just by the capacity in which God has called them to serve her. She IS ministering to others in her most helpless capacity. She, too, has been changed dramatically by the helping hands and hearts that have surrounded her. But those hands and hearts did not come to her right away. It took a long time for them to show up in her narrow field of vision. She has learned that sometimes we are called to do nothing and that IS something. We want to DO something for God and that typically does not include removing our "useful self" from the equation.

Sometimes the searing pain of God's silence is even worse than the bitter pain in the body. But, God help me if this sounds trite or cold, sometimes He is silent because we refuse to hear how He really IS speaking. We refuse because it is not how we so painfully, desperately want Him and need Him to speak. So many Jews rejected Jesus, the Word of God, because He wasn't the king they thought He would be or because He was a rebel, or........... The Word of God wasn't what they thought it would be so they rejected it altogether.

This disease has stripped my friend of the beautiful young life she had as a wife and new mother. If anyone wants to visit her, they have to strictly adhere to a checklist of do's and don'ts for her safety. She suffers with PTSD because ordinary things have been so traumatic on her. But what if just maybe my friend's life is the forerunner for Jesus in someone else's life? What if my friend's suffering is the call on someone else to do something they thought was too difficult or time consuming only to find out when they actually answer the call, it births a highly effectual, faith-filled walk with God they never knew was possible? What if God has storehouses of rewards for her if she can somehow make it to the end without determining that end for herself? What if she suffers for Christ, not knowing any better reason except that she was called to do it? Would YOU do it? I mean, would you suffer solely so God could get the glory and richly bless you even if there seemed to be no earthly reason to even wake up in the morning (or afternoon)?

I felt the need to draw attention to my friend's suffering in order to apply the three part article I just wrote about the silence of God. It's one thing to give it superficial application or even let it jolt you a little. But the call to strengthen your commitment comes when you find yourself face-to-face with your mortality and you're not sure you can even trust God with that! How far will your faith really go? Will you reject His Word and starve to death because they're not the words you want to hear?

Oh, my heart aches for my friend and the countless others in her shoes. No one ever asks for that when they ask God to use them or seek God to know their calling. But it's not a mean trick played by a manipulative God. You can't possibly know the outcome from this spinning orb in time and space. The answers aren't here to be found. Just ask Job. He never knew the answer to "Why, Lord?" until after he persevered to the end. Don't quit! You can't quit. There are consequences for quitting altogether. Hearing God will be your reward here on earth if you allow yourself to truly hear the Word. Let His love speak through the bitterness. I pray God will give you soundness of mind and heart to redirect your attention to the sound of God speaking through the actions and words of others, to hear Him in the arrival of someone new in your life, to hear Him through His written words or streaming sermons, to hear Him speaking through you out to others who seem to only cause you heartache, to find His love in the pictures of a magazine or uplifting music, to recall His embrace around your heart. God hasn't stopped speaking since He poured His Spirit into you, but in this life, His Word does get drowned out and even tossed to the curb, mistaken for something worthless.