There are no easy answers. We can read and study the Bible and still never understand everything that happens in our lives or why God allows certain things to happen to us. God usually doesn't give us answers to life's difficult questions. They're called the imponderables, and we all have them.
I heard a minister on the radio say it's always God's will for us to be healed. He went so far as to say Christians should never get sick in the first place. He believes we should live a good long life — at least 100 years — and then God will just take us to heaven.
In an ideal world, that might be possible, but we live in reality. There are times in all our lives when things go wrong for reasons we may never understand.
I'm sure this minister doesn't mean to belittle those who are sick or disabled. I think he's really trying to help people when he says God never says "no" to healing and that people don't have to live with sickness and disease. But we are all touched at some level by personal tragedies, whether it's cancer, heart disease, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome or a million other things that cause us to ask “Why would God let this to happen to me?"
I wrote to that minister I heard on the radio and asked if he believes God sometimes allows us to have ailments/sickness so His purposes can be accomplished. I told him I knew that God created me and that He must have a purpose for it. If he didn't have a purpose for it, why would God allow me to be born with this disability? He could've prevented it or he could heal me.
The radio minister replied to my e-mail. He said it is not God's plan for anybody to have physical imperfections. He wrote, "God created you, but there may have been some genetic flaw in the genes, or something, that caused the cerebral palsy."
I know God didn't cause me to have cerebral palsy, but it didn't take him by surprise either. Psalm 139:13 says, "You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb....You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed."
God knew I would be born with cerebral palsy. I believe He planned the days of my life with that in mind. If He didn't at least take it into account, wouldn't that mean His perfect plan for my life was thwarted before I was even born? It doesn't make sense to me.
That's what led me to Dr. James Dobson's book, "When God Doesn't Make Sense." Dobson says it's about keeping the faith when things don't seem to make sense. Proverbs 3:5 says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding."
There are some things we cannot comprehend and may never understand — at least not in this life. I thought my life was over when I had to move into a nursing home when I was only 45 years old. I had lost partial use of one of my arms. What good am I when I'm stuck in this place? I wondered that many times. I couldn't type on the computer like I'm doing here. I couldn't even lift my water glass to get a drink. I felt completely helpless.
I had to learn how to literally live by faith and not by sight. I couldn't go on my feelings. I had to stretch my faith.
"What makes faith faith is that when we don’t understand what God is up to, we still trust Him," Dobson wrote in his book. "If you have to see it to believe it, it is not true faith."
I had to learn to trust God even if things didn't make sense at the time. I had to stop trying to figure things out and let God be God, knowing that while His ways may be different than ours, God is just and His timing is always perfect.
I truly believe that. I know God must have a purpose for me the way I am. Dr. Dobson used Moses as an example in this excerpt from his book:
When God called him, Moses complained that he lacked eloquence for the task — “I am slow of speech and tongue” (Exodus 4:10) — yet the Lord did not offer to heal that infirmity.... Why wouldn’t He eliminate this troublesome speech impediment? He certainly had the power to do so..... As I’ve said before, there are times when God doesn’t make sense. We can assume that the Lord didn’t heal Moses’ “slowness of tongue” because Moses, like Paul, was learning that his strength was made perfect in weakness.I'd never thought about Moses' life that way. If God could use Moses with his affliction, He can use us with all our limitations. We just have to be willing to let Him use us with all our weaknesses.
Dobson says we must never forget that He is God. He wants us to believe and trust in Him despite the things we don’t understand. God has plans and purposes to which we are not privy. That doesn't mean that death, sickness and hardships are really positives in disguise. But it reminds us that God has promised to take these things and bring good from them. Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."
Dobson also says we must not let go of our faith. "Don’t demand explanations. Don’t lean on your ability to understand. Don’t lose your faith. But do choose to trust Him by the exercise of the will He has placed within you," Dobson wrote.
I've concluded from all this that it's all about faith and trust. I have to have the faith that God will heal me in His timing, but I have to trust Him enough to know His plans for my life are perfect.
Dr. Dobson summed it up this way: "Accept the circumstances as they are presented to you. Expect periods of hardship to occur, and don’t be dismayed when they arrive. Lean into the pain when your time to suffer comes around, knowing that God will use the difficulty for His purposes — and, indeed, for our own good."
