I am suffering, friends…. feeling exhausted in prayers for healing. I feel alone with my sorrows and relentless pain; I am in darkness as I wonder why the Lord has allowed such afflictions to come upon me. My agony arises not from unbelief, for I am fully persuaded and entirely convinced that the Lord can simply “say the word” and I shall be healed, despite my worthless condition… Yet my vexations remain; they torment me in their persistence; I cry out for mercy yet there is no relief… “How long with you forget me, O LORD, forever?” With tears I cry out “Lord I believe; help thou my unbelief” (Mark 9:23-24). In a flash of distress I feel like I am on the border of death itself, as David cried out: “the snares of death encompass me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffer distress and anguish…”

It is written: “Blessed is the Lord, who daily bears our burden; He is the God of our salvation; selah” (Psalm 69:19). The word “selah” here means to pause or reflect (the ancient Greek uses διάψαλμα, meaning to “hold out the palm of the hand” for this word). Our burden includes the sorrows of loss and pain as well, as the passage continues: “Our God is the God of deliverance, and the LORD our Master provides escape from death” (Psalm 69:20). Yea, the LORD provides deliverance from death, even in the midst of our dying, and even when we die, as it says, “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Messiah died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Rom. 14:7-9). Suffering and physical death are a part of our journey in this fallen world, though they do not have the final word about who we are and what ultimately becomes of us. May God grant us strength to endure our days. Amen.

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