My wife has pancreatic cancer for the second time, and I am desperate.... There are moments when I get depressed from seeing her suffering, and at times I have said that God doesn’t love us and doesn’t listen to us anymore....

At times I feel that I can’t go on, but there is something inside of me that pushes me to keep going.

Dear Friend,

We are so sorry to hear about your wife’s suffering, as well as the effect it has had on you and others who also love her. We lost a very dear loved one to pancreatic cancer just a few years ago, and the loss we feel is still very real. We wish there were something we could say that would lessen your pain, but only time and God’s comfort can do that. Instead, we will try and respond to your doubts about God’s love for you.

Perhaps the most common question asked about God is why He allows suffering. But no one asks why God gives good health. No one asks why God gives an abundance of food, only why He allows drought and starvation. In our human understanding, we don’t often credit God with the positive things in our lives, yet we blame Him for all that is wrong with our lives and the world in general. We want a God who gives us good gifts, provides all that we need, and protects us from all harm, sickness, and death. So while we are willing to accept a God who gives us all that we want, we tend to reject the God who has His own plan for what is best for us and for our eternal well-being.

God created an earth where there was only good.1 Everyone was in good health and well fed. There was no sorrow or sickness. The book of Genesis tells us about this perfect earth. If God had chosen to inhabit this earth with robots, then only good choices would have been made. But God didn’t want robots; He wanted intelligent beings that could make their own choices. So He gave Adam and Eve the ability to choose right or wrong, good or evil. They chose wrong, and we have been paying the consequences down through history. Sickness and death came into the world as a consequence of that first sin2 and, unfortunately, no human being is exempt from suffering the pain it causes. It was what our ancestors chose, but not what God wanted for us.

On this earth we are living the consequences of what Adam and Eve chose for humankind. But God loved us so much that He created a way of escape. He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the price of our one-way ticket to a better place. If we accept that Jesus died on the cross to take our punishment for sin and to pay for our entrance into that better place, then death is not the end but just the beginning of a beautiful new life where everything will be good. God loved us so much that He has prepared for us a place called heaven, where there will be no suffering or pain. When we ask God to forgive our sins and give us the ticket that Jesus already paid for, we are insuring an eternal life in that wonderful place. So even though dying seems like a tragic end, it is just the transition into a perfect new beginning.

May you feel God’s great love for you today,

Linda and Charles
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1 Ge 1:31
2 Ro 5:12

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