Faith Everyday Archives - Page 4 of 41

Why does God allow good people to suffer?

My dear friend’s son was an all-star, starting athlete in high school football, basketball and baseball with outstanding academics to match when a car accident on an ordinary Wednesday in October left him clinging to life for months. God miraculously spared him but the trajectory of his life forever changed that day.

Another young mom friend lost her baby at 39 weeks. Her pregnancy had been textbook until that week when she stopped feeling little kicks and wiggles. Days later, dressed in somber shades of gray and black, we stood around the tiniest casket I’d ever seen. When she got pregnant again, we exhaled relief. Until the 39^th week, when she stopped feeling little kicks and wiggles. The unthinkable had happened again and we stood around another tiny casket, brought more casseroles, helplessly unable to fix such tragedy.

Businesses collapse, careers are sidelined, spouses walk out, diagnoses are delivered, those we desperately love die too soon.

And reeling with the unexpected ashes of what we thought life would look like we ask, why does God allow good people to suffer?

And more to the point: God, why are you letting me suffer?

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12 Bible Verses for the Widow and Single Mom

By Lisa Appelo 1 Comment

It’s the club no one ever wanted to be in. From wife to widow.

One day I was happily married and in the space of a few hours, a widow and single mom to 7.

Days later, at the funeral service for my husband, an older woman gently approached me, extended a hug and said she was from the widow’s ministry at church.

“Oh. I’m a widow,” I mumbled through the fog that was grief as the reality of my new identity hit me.

Grappling with deep grief for me and my children, one of the first things I did was look up every Bible verse on widows and the fatherless. Sure I’d read them over the years, but now these scriptures applied to me. To my children.

And so one morning, I flipped from my concordance to the pages of my Bible and was astounded at what I found.

God loves the widow and fatherless.

He has always taken care of them. God’s Old Testament laws made special provision for them, protected them and their land, and gave serious warning to anyone who took advantage of them.

And the New Testament does the same. The very role of deacon came about because of the church needed godly men of integrity who would make sure daily provision was made for the widow. Timothy gave detailed instructions to the early church on how to care for widows.

But even more important, God’s very character is described as the defender of widows and father to the fatherless. The word for “defender” means advocate — one who pleads the cause, renders justice and rescues from wrongdoing.

Caring for the widow and the fatherless is not just what God does; it’s who he is.

And because it’s his character it will never change. God has always cared for the widow and fatherless and he always will. We can count on not only his promises for the widow, but his character.

If you are a widow or single mom, if you’re raising children without a father, be assured that God is for you.

12 Bible verses for the widow and single mom

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Secondary Losses in Grief — but Essential Lessons in Life

By Lisa Appelo 22 Comments

When Dan died, we lost a hundred other things too.

Our grief isn’t just for missing him.

His death touched every single part of life. From the way we do dinner around the table to the rhythm of our calendar.

As the weeks wore on after his death, I slowly realized the full extent of loss.

The secondary losses in grief part of what make grief so tenacious, so pervasive as it upends normal in every part of life.

I made a list yesterday of the secondary losses for a young widow. My list might look a bit different than yours if you are grieving the death of a child, pregnancy loss, a divorce, a relationship, an adult child who’s living.

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When Anxiety Flares in Grief: 4 Steps to Calm Anxiety

By Lisa Appelo 6 Comments

Sometimes the trauma of grief leaves stubborn remnants, long after we’ve dealt with the hardest pain and missing. Christie Thomas knows deep grief wrapped in the hope of Christ. As a children’s author with a unique perspective, I asked Christie to share her story of anxiety flares in grief and 4 steps to calm anxiety.

* * *

I jogged through the park, keeping pace with the music in my earbuds. As I passed the fire station, something caught my eye. A nearly-crushed vehicle sat placidly in their back parking lot, probably for training purposes.

I stopped short, suddenly unable to jog any further. My heart pounded. Memories surfaced — memories I felt were physically choking me.

. . . police officers at the door late at night telling us my sister wouldn’t be coming home.

. . . pictures of a crushed car, the car I gave her the keys to that morning.

I stood there, face in my trembling hands, trying not to break down in the middle of the path, trying to breathe again, to slow down my heart rate.

I wasn’t used to losing control like this. It had been years since my sister’s death and I thought I had dealt with the grief. But this was an anxiety attack, triggered by the unwelcome sight of a crushed car.

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How to Hope in the Storm

By Lisa Appelo 23 Comments

Hope sounds heady engraved on a necklace in the mall store but what about when hope is all you have? It’s then we realize how thin we’ve let our hope become. Shauna Letellier weaves Biblical narrative into hard places of hope and shares how to hope in the storm today.

* * *

It was an expensive, last-minute hotel reservation we didn’t want to make. It came with a seven-hour drive and a complimentary shuttle to the Mayo Clinic. With the help of a clinic scheduler and family members, my husband and I left our three sons with family, promised to get them home for their first day of the new school year, and scurried off to Rochester, Minnesota to get some answers.

For 452 miles I contemplated the appointment that might be the continental-divide of our lives. As the highway markers zipped by, I gave myself a spiritual pep-talk.

“Now, be a grown-up Christian about this. No matter what tests reveal or what kind of spots appear on thermal images, God is with you. No matter the diagnosis or the prognosis, God is faithful. Tragedy and illness, tumors and injury, are part of living in a fallen world, and nothing you will discover in the next few days will change the inseparable nature of God’s love.”

My head and heart knew the facts. Although I chewed my cuticles into hangnails, I had a sense of calm. A strange lack of anxiety.

I felt like a bonafide “mature Christian.” No tears. No tantrums. After so many years of walking with Christ, I could finally demonstrate some semblance of stability, and I secretly wanted to congratulate myself.

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