A Friend Asks Why Her Child Suffers So

There are no words of comfort that will suffice for something so terrible as a parent's suffering child. I've never thought anyone exempt from human suffering. I've experienced and seen too much of it; by all of us. Putting, possibly, in some perspective, Peter writes: "Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God."

Oswald Chambers addressed the suffering of the sanctified, a child: "The sufferings of the sanctified are caused by growing into the idea of the will of God. God did not spare His own Son, and He does not spare His sanctified ones from the requirements of saintship. A child is a perfect specimen of the genus homo, so is a man. The child as it develops, suffers; it is a false mercy that spares a child any requirements of its nature to complete the full stature of manhood, and it is a false mercy that spares the sanctified child of God any of the requirements of its nature to complete 'the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ'. We do not evolve into holiness, it is a gift - we evolve in it, attainment after attainment, becoming sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus. That is Paul's meaning in Philippians 3:12, 13, 'reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal'.

A child in the natural world is not fit for life unless it is perfectly healthy; sanctification is spiritual health, 'perfect soundness'. May the God of peace sanctify us wholly so that we are no longer sickly souls retarding His purposes, but made 'perfect through suffering'. Oh, that from every heart may rise the yearning longing, as from the apostle Paul."

I grieve for my friend, and her suffering child. I grieve for any suffering. I grieve too, for the suffering of Christ, and that we all fall so short of His sacrifice that will provide for us if we but fully embrace and accept it.