Suffering

“The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.”
— Psalm 34:18 (NKJV)

When I was in my mid-twenties, I went through one of the hardest seasons of my life.

I was unemployed and had been between jobs for some time. I didn’t have a car that I could reliably depend on, so I would take public transportation to the unemployment office and to whatever job interviews came my way. My last few dollars went toward making sure I had what I needed to get to the interviews and hopefully find work.

And the interviews? Most of them led nowhere.

Some turned out to be group interviews for what felt like pyramid schemes disguised as marketing companies. Others were telemarketing offices. I would get dressed, spend what little money I had getting there, sit through another interview, and come home still unemployed.

That season was brutal.

There were moments when I didn’t even have enough money to buy something as basic as soap.

But while I was struggling with unemployment and trying to figure out how I was going to get my own life back on track, someone I loved deeply was fighting a completely different battle.

My best friend was pregnant with her second child.

The Kind of Friend Who Knows Your Childhood Nickname

We had been best friends since middle school.

I still remember meeting her on the first day of sixth grade. I didn’t know anyone at this new school. I wasn’t particularly outspoken as a child, but for some reason — maybe it was just the excitement of starting somewhere new — I introduced myself to her and asked her name.

And that was it.

Somehow, from that moment forward, we just knew we were friends.

There is something special about having someone in your life who knew you before adulthood complicated everything.

She knew my childhood nickname. We survived our awkward phases together. I’m a millennial, so we spent countless nights on the phone doing three-way calls with friends. Back then, our friend groups even had names.

Neither of us came from wealth. I grew up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood, and I’m not saying that as a complaint. I grew up with both of my parents in the home, and among many of the kids in our neighborhood, having that stability alone sometimes felt like winning the lottery.

Before either of us could drive, my friend and I would coordinate which city buses (public transits) to take so we could meet up at the mall. Sometimes I went to her house. Sometimes she came to mine.

Then life started happening.

She got her first car. Then came the first “good-paying” job. Then, inevitably, the first real boyfriend.

We grew up.

Our lives changed.

But somehow, we continued talking and remained close.

That’s why what happened next hurt so deeply.

She Had Already Lost One Child

My friend had previously lost a baby only weeks after he was born because of serious complications involving his organs developing outside of his body.

He didn’t survive.

It was devastating, but she held onto the belief that her baby was in heaven.

So when she became pregnant again — after being told that she might not be able to conceive — this pregnancy carried enormous meaning.

She was excited.

She was determined.

She wanted to do everything she possibly could to make sure this baby and her toddler daughter were okay.

By her third trimester, however, she began dealing with infection after infection.

Eventually, another infection developed. This time, she couldn’t wait for an appointment with her regular doctor. She went to the hospital.

From what I understood at the time, it was something as seemingly ordinary as a bladder infection. I was naïve about pregnancy and had no idea how serious an infection could become during the third trimester.

I kept texting her to make sure she was okay.

And the painful irony was that I had almost nothing to give her.

No job.

No money.

No transportation.

My best friend was in the hospital, and I couldn’t fix anything.

Then one evening, she texted me and said that the infection had gotten worse and the doctors needed to perform emergency surgery to deliver the baby.

I don’t remember how much time passed before I heard from her again.

But I remember one of our final exchanges after the surgery was done.

I texted:

“My friend, thank God you are okay.”

She responded:

“I’m not okay.”

Those words stayed with me.

From what I understood, the baby had been delivered and was healthy.

But my friend wasn’t okay.

Soon afterward, she went into a coma.

When You Don’t Understand What God Is Doing

For weeks, I cried.

I prayed.

I asked God why.

I begged.

Most of the information I received came through her sister because my friend could no longer speak for herself.

And there was another layer of pain that is difficult to explain unless you’ve experienced poverty alongside grief:

I didn’t even have enough money to go see my dying best friend.

When someone you love is suffering, you want to do something.

Anything.

But I couldn’t heal her.

I couldn’t change what was happening.

I could barely afford to get myself where I needed to go.

There are seasons when suffering has a way of stripping you of the illusion that you are in control.

Jobless.

Broke.

My best friend fighting for her life.

And God seemingly silent.

Scripture doesn’t pretend those moments don’t exist.

David asked:

“How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?”
— Psalm 13:1 (NKJV)

Even Jesus, standing outside the tomb of Lazarus and knowing resurrection was coming, entered into the grief surrounding Him.

“Jesus wept.”
— John 11:35 (NKJV)

The Bible doesn’t teach us that faith means pretending suffering doesn’t hurt.

Sometimes faith is continuing to call Him God while your heart is breaking.

The Hospital Room

The day finally came when I was able to visit her.

Before leaving, I remember sitting in my car in a parking lot near my home.

A dark brown bird with black feathers running from the top of its head down through its wings landed somewhere nearby me.

Walking towards me, it eventually caught my attention. I watched it for a moment.

For whatever reason, in that instance, it made me think of her.

Then I went to the hospital.

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.

When I walked into that room, my mind couldn’t reconcile the person lying in that hospital bed.

Her body was swollen.

Then my eyes made it up to her swollen face.

There were tubes everywhere. In her mouth, in her nose… in her arms.

Machines were making her body pump up and down.

This was not my best friend.

This wasn’t the girl I remembered riding around town taking joy rides (she had an old soul and would play music like The Isley Brothers) — I can still hear it.

This wasn’t the girl I met when I was twelve years old.

This wasn’t the friend whose voice I knew on the other end of countless phone calls.

At least, that wasn’t how my mind could process what I was seeing.

A doctor came in the room, stood beside her and began talking.

I couldn’t hear him.

Not literally — words were coming out of his mouth — but my mind couldn’t process them.

I immediately moved towards the chair in the room to keep from collapsing.

My body slumped into it.

I was numb.

Eventually, I had to leave the room. I remember sitting in a chair in the hospital hallway crying.

I don’t know how long I sat there.

I don’t even remember whether I properly said goodbye (we were in the room alone).

From that point on, I was numb and went through the motions to get home.

But before I even made it home, her sister called.

My friend had passed away.

I simply said:

“Okay.”

What else was there to say?

I sat there with this sharp, indescribable suffering.

Sad.

Confused. What is death at that age?

The Dream

For a good while after she passed away, I mourned.

Then one night, she appeared to me in a dream.

Funny enough, we were back on a city bus.

Just like when we were kids.

In the dream, we had met up on there as though we were going somewhere together. It was nighttime.

Other people were on the bus, although I don’t remember where it was headed.

I looked at my friend in her eyes — she looked like herself again.

Not the way I had last seen her in the hospital.

There were no tubes.

No machines.

No swelling.

She looked normal.

Beautiful.

Assured.

And in a very certain, matter-of-fact way, I remembered her telling me “I’m ok. You cannot go where I’m going”.

I listened. I remember taking the words in with peace.

I got off the bus.

Then, the dream ended.

I won’t pretend to understand everything about dreams, grief, heaven, or the mysteries of what God allows us to experience. Maybe it was her way of telling me to get back up again.

Scripture itself reminds us:

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”
— 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NKJV)

There are things I simply don’t know.

But, I do know what that dream did for me.

The hospital no longer got to have the final word. It gave me another image of my friend.

Picking Myself Back Up

Several months later, I eventually found another job and slowly began getting back on my feet.

I was also able to meet my friend’s new infant daughter and spend time with her oldest daughter, who was about three years old by then.

One day, I took her eldest daughter out shopping.

While we were in the checkout line, there was a wad of money on the ground right at my feet.

For me, it was not a coincidence.

That woman loved her kids so much.

I’m not going to pretend I understand everything that happens in this world or assign supernatural meaning to every unusual moment.

I had spent months feeling as though I had absolutely nothing to give.

Now I was standing there with my best friend’s little girl, beginning to rebuild my own life, and unexpectedly finding provision right in front of me.

I received it as kindness. I received provision. And I got closer to closure.

Suffering Can Change What You Believe About God

I could have walked away from that season believing God was cruel.

I could have blamed Him for taking my friend away from me.

I could have decided that because God allowed something I couldn’t understand, He could no longer be trusted.

But suffering forced me to wrestle with a much harder question:

Is God still good when life isn’t?

I have learned that God’s goodness cannot always be measured by whether He gives us the outcome we desperately pray for.

Sometimes there is no explanation that makes the loss hurt less.

Sometimes there is no neatly packaged answer to why?

The Bible doesn’t promise us a life without suffering. Christ actually told His disciples:

“In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
— John 16:33 (NKJV)

And Paul reminds us:

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
— Romans 8:18 (NKJV)

That doesn’t make grief imaginary or death insignificant.

And it certainly doesn’t mean we have to smile while our hearts are breaking.

It means suffering doesn’t get the final word.

Death doesn’t get the final word.

A cold hospital room doesn’t get the final word.

For those who belong to Christ, Christ gets the final word.

Looking back, the greatest gift that came from that season was that it taught me to do unto others and to serve.

And maybe that dream was simply my grieving mind trying to make sense of an unbearable loss. I don’t claim to know.

But I know what it gave me:

It reminded me of her in life and to celebrate her life.

A reminder to get off the bus and keep living.

Because wherever my journey was going next, apparently, I still had somewhere here to go.

And God still has a mission for me.

“I shall not die, but live, And declare the works of the LORD.”
— Psalm 118:17 (NKJV)