Category: Suffering
Reflections from a Week of Sickness
It was 3 a.m. and I was shivering. The problem? It was hot outside, and I was in a home without air conditioning. I was also far from my home because I was teaching at a church in another state for the weekend. As quietly as...
Encouragement from Job the Sufferer
Like twin tsunamis, affliction overtook Job in two crushing waves. First his immense wealth and his ten children were swept away. Then his body was tormented by “loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (2:7).Job’s story spans forty-two chapters...
An Empty Chair at Christmas
Sometimes the hope of Christmas is, “Next year all our troubles will be miles away.” That’s what the song says anyway, but many will not have a merry Christmas just because of that. They know it is not true. Many start with and cannot get past...
A Kind of Pleasing Pain
True Christians should be the most contented people on earth. After all, think of what they have been given: spiritual understanding of the vast treasures in the Word of God, the blessed assurance of forgiveness, the soul-anchoring hope of eternal life, the present delight of knowing...
The Suffering Church: Meitei Believers
As I spoke by interpreter to the Meitei pastors and church planters in Bangladesh, I knew that I was training a special group of conscientious leaders. We met in a small mud chapel beside a devoted pastor’s home who had just died unexpectedly. They listened intently...
Praying for the Persecuted
The deadliest attack on Christians in the history of Pakistan happened last week. The death toll has reached 85, with 120 wounded. Two suicide bombers entered the worship service in a building that has stood since 1883, and set off explosives containing ball bearings. Children, wives,...
Man of Sorrows
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane . . . And . . . he began to be sorrowful and troubled. (Matthew 26:36, 37) The statement in Matthew 26:36, 37 is significant. Christ has known sorrow before this, but the assertion that in...
Suffering Evangelism
If you had tuberculosis, what would you do? Doug Nichols is the Founder and International Director Emeritus of Action International Ministries. While serving as a missionary in India in 1967, he contracted tuberculosis. He was treated in a sanatorium in India, and while there he tried...
Getting Through a Miscarriage
Sadly, miscarriages are common. Experts say that about 20% of recognized pregnancies end in a miscarriage, but the actual percentage is higher if one includes those that happen without the mother knowing. Members of my church recently went through a miscarriage, and it brought back memories...