By 
The world changes when people suffer serious wrongs and sorrows. Everything looks and feels different. Of course, different people respond to grief and suffering in different ways, but everyone faces this as a serious personal hardship. Sometimes it’s overwhelming. Grief and sadness change lives, sometimes permanently. This short article offers a look, in a Christian context, on how we can best face this difficult experience.
- EMOTIONS
One thing stands out as quite common for our humanity in times of pain and sadness and that is that we try to make some sense of it. We want to understand if our suffering means anything so that we can better cope with it, and if it might even have a purpose. Yes, the first shock of what caused the deep pain could make us reel, bewildered and depressed. Then, as our emotions swirl, it seems like we’re trying to see through a thick fog. But slowly an outline begins to show, and you may gradually find a way forward as you learn to cope with the loss or serious change that caused your grief and sadness, though you will never be the same again.
- WHY?
This idea of finding a purpose in grievance and pain that can help lessen its horrible worthlessness is challenging for people in these post-Christian times, although some may find it helpful to share their grievance with an experienced counselor, or read about grievances and gain psychological knowledge. Atheists who are in deep pain and sadness also have to wrestle with their humanity when they seem to be saying, ‘This seems so wrong!’ This is difficult to face. If there is no meaningful or higher purpose to life on the basis of the living God, but only as a freak accident, then all of our human experience, not just grievance and pain, has no ultimate meaning. It’s all just a part of nature and if there’s no rhyme or reason to it, there’s no point in thinking about the ‘why’ question, though I would kindly invite anyone to ask why they’re asking ‘why?’ Yes, it points to a moral standard of right and wrong that comes from Creator God himself, and how things have gone so wrong in our morally fallen world.
But, if you are a true Christian and you know that God has accepted and loved you through what Jesus suffered on the cross, you will know how God’s peace and the promises of his word really help you in that difficult time. So, are Christians just weak people who need supernatural support, or is it true that ‘the Lord is near to the brokenhearted’? (Psalm 34:18). Yes, this is a faith issue, and people who have not yet come to personal faith in Christ will see it in a completely different way.
- PEACE
However, I will certainly hold that Christianity is not a soft refuge for people who could not face the harsh sorrows of a troubled world. Look at the lives of humble Christians who have suffered great hardships and who see no less the love of God poured out for them. Search anywhere; go to the north of Nigeria, to the countries of North Africa, the Middle East or China, wherever there is repression and open persecution of Christians, and you will find people capable of holding their heads up; people serious in their commitment to follow Christ with great dignity, faith and enduring courage, wherever He leads them. They do so with the deep conviction that Jesus not only died for their sins to give them peace with God, but rose in triumph over darkness and death to bring the reality of sins forgiven, in a life worth living. with all the problems. , trusting in an eternal Savior, who is near. Jesus’ own word is clear, ‘in me you will have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world’ (John 16:33).
- COMPREHENSION
Look at the way the early Christians suffered great hardship in Holy Spirit-inspired joy and peace and you can begin to see that here are people who in their deepest sorrows and sorrows have learned to see the loving hand of God right in medium. of everything.
Look today at young Christians who may have lost a child to serious illness, or who are facing some other calamity, bereavement, or loss, and you will find, not perfect people, but those who are discovering the greatness of God’s love. and that his peace and strength are enough for each day.
Certainly, there is no quick fix or simplistic magic bullet to the challenges of pain and sadness, but through faith in Christ, who bore our terrible doom, we find an all-sufficient God and Savior. We see that he has entered even into our own human experience of pain and sorrow and death itself, and whose word assures us that, ‘the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 4:7).
Now, take comfort in this, that if you belong to Christ, even in the moments of deepest pain and sadness, ‘we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, that is, to those who according to his purpose they are called’ (Romans 8:28).