A Father's Love and Strength

I remember the first time I had to take my very young daughter to the dentist for a serious procedure. She asked me to come in with her because she was scared. I sat there holding her hand, watching her go through it, wishing I could take her place in that chair instead.

From her perspective, the dentist looked like a kind of villain—this calm, masked figure with sharp tools and no mercy, doing things that didn’t feel loving at all. If she had the words for it, she might have thought, “Why is this evil man doing this to me?” All she knew was the pain, not the purpose.

I even found myself thinking, “Let’s just end this—somebody save her from this maniac,” even though I knew he was actually trying to help her heal.

"God may allow temporary suffering,
not to harm us,
but to heal what we cannot heal ourselves."

But I also knew I had to let her go through it so the real problem could be fixed.

In a similar way, there are moments when God can feel distant—or even cruel—when we are in pain. We see the suffering, but not always the healing it’s working toward. Yet, like that dentist, what feels harsh in the moment may actually be part of something deeper being made right.v

Sometimes love must allow temporary pain in order to bring lasting healing. The suffering we experience in this life can ultimately awaken us to our need for Jesus and draw us closer to Him.

Sometimes love must allow temporary pain to bring lasting healing. God allows us to go through suffering so that a deeper problem—sin and death—can be healed. The suffering we experience in this life can awaken us to our remedy in Jesus and draw us closer to Him.