In the last few weeks, I met several people whose lives speak a story of brokenness.

There’s a lady who works at a salon. Her makeup is on point. But her eyes betray her pain. She has left her two daughters with their grandmother in another state in the North East of India to work in a city hundreds of miles away. That’s the only way she can put food on the table or send them to school. She hasn’t met her 12-year-old and her 10-year-old girls in years. Her face doesn’t betray any emotion. Her voice shakes ever so slightly as she tells her story.

There’s a young girl with a bright smile who I met at a shelter home. She was only three when her mom walked out of their tiny home and out of the clutches of an abusive husband. Growing up in a village in south India, the young girl only had one photograph of her mother, but her father destroyed it when he caught her looking at it. She can’t remember what her mom looks like anymore. “I don’t know if my mom is alive, but I pray every day that I meet her,” she says, her eyes clouding with tears.

There’s an older couple I met in an online seminar. They lost their vibrant young son to an aggressive cancer just days after his diagnosis. Their pain is palpable. Their sorrow is heavy even after years of losing him.

As I hear the stories, I can’t help but wonder, “Why?”

Why, God, is there so much pain? Why do these people have to endure such sorrow?

There are answers that tick some boxes.

“Because we live in a broken world.”

“Because God allows evil to unfold but will, one day, stamp it out and establish His kingdom on earth.”

“Because God does not control people and poor decisions are made.”

But the answers don’t always feel like they are enough. They are good answers and true answers, but they sometimes fall short.

Maybe you’re living through a situation where the answers seem inadequate. The “reasons” for your suffering are not quite satisfactory. Maybe you’ve grasped them intellectually, but your heart is still heavy under the weight of it all.

But maybe God says to you right now, “The answers may not be enough. But I am always enough.”

God didn’t come just to give us answers. He came to be the answer.

He is our all-sufficient God. We often equate “all sufficient” to mean a God who provides for our every physical need. And while that is true, He is also sufficient in our sorrow and enough in our emotional distress.

We don’t have quick fixes or Band-Aids to slap onto our broken stories, but we have the One who understands.

Jesus understands the sorrow of separation as He cried out, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?’ He understands what it is to be betrayed by the ones you trust, abandoned by the ones you love, treated with treachery and unfairness, and face torture and physical pain.

He went through it all for your sake and mine.

And He reminds you today that He is with you. And won’t ever leave.

When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze. (Isaiah 43: 2)

As you walk your journey, you are not alone. He plunges Himself into the raging seas and into the blazing furnace.

Let His story pull you in. Let His love draw you close. Let His presence be your balm. Let your Savior be your solace.

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