“I cried myself to sleep again last night,” she told me. Her problem would not go away despite all her efforts to resolve it. It was out of her control and yet her attempts to turn it over to God brought no resolution or peace. Each day she prayed, each night she asked, why?, and then cried herself to sleep. This night she felt her problem more keenly than ever and knew she would surely perish under its enormous weight. As she fell to sleep, the last tear running down her cheek was quickly absorbed into her porous skin. Not even the tears for her sorrow could escape her tormented body.

Several hours later, she was awakened by someone touching her arm. It was a pleasant sensation, yet when fully awake she quickly turned on the light. “Only a dream. Dreams can seem so real,” she thought as she fell back to sleep. This one especially. It was a nice dream. Comforting. Reassuring.

Again her sleep was disturbed. This time, it was a cool breeze, coming through the window passing over her still body. “I had better close the window,” her sleeping mind reasoned as she threw back the blanket. “A storm is coming. It might rain in.” She caught herself before she went any further. There was no window next to her bed, only a closet. She laid back in bed wide awake.

The soothing touch, the gentle breeze were quickly pushed from her mind by her problem – always there every waking moment. Once again tears came from her tightly closed eyes. “Oh God, why, why? I cannot bear it one more minute,” she prayed. When she had finished pouring out her soul to God she became silent. In the quiet of her bedroom, she heard these words whispered, “HE KNOWS. HE KNOWS.”

“Why, Lord, why?” as a Pastor, I have asked and heard that question a million times. At the bedside of a dying child. Driving around with parents looking for a runaway child. Talking to someone whose spouse has just walked out on a thirty year marriage. Why, Lord, why?

And so we go on holding onto our faith, all the while aching inside and always that question, why? Why won’t God do something? Why did He let this happen? At times the burden becomes almost unbearable and night after night we cry ourselves to sleep as did my friend. Oh yes, my friend and her midnight dreams and voices in the night. What was that all about?

She sat before me in my office. Her countenance changed right before my eyes. She became the harbinger of the “Good News.” She was radiant as she told me of a God who came to her that night with no answers or solutions to her problem. But a God who comes to touch us with His steady hand when the earth is breaking up beneath our feet. A God who passes a cool breeze across our feverish body. A God who whispers reassuring words: “We are not forgotten. He knows our pain. He knows our struggle. He knows the tremendous burden we carry.” And while, for reasons we cannot understand, He cannot resolve the problem pressing upon us; He sends His Holy Spirit to comfort us and to whisper these words unto our troubled hearts: “He knows. He knows!”

Rev. Wendell Mettey
9/16/1991
Revised 9/25/2013

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