The deepest theological questions often come from the mouths of children. Although my nine-year-old daughter had never heard of the word “theodicy,” her question one evening went straight to the heart of God’s goodness. Sitting together at the foot of her bed, we had been praying once again that God would heal a painful health issue she had been battling for two years. Despite hundreds of such prayers, her condition had progressed. That night, her fears prompted the deepest of questions: “Does God not love me? Is that why he isn’t answering my prayers?”

Although my heart ached for her, that question wasn’t an unfamiliar one. Long before becoming a mother, I was the little girl lying in bed with tear-soaked pillows, wondering why God hadn’t answered my prayers. Suffering has been woven into my story since infancy, when I was given less than a ten percent chance of survival. Since then, I’ve had nine cancer surgeries, ongoing daily medical challenges, and most recently radiation treatment. I know what it’s like to wonder why God hasn’t brought healing.

When I gazed down at my daughter, whose eyes traced mine for some semblance of comfort, I saw myself in her pain. I couldn’t give her healing, but I knew where she could find help in time of need. The following tools, hard-learned through my own hardships, have guided my daughter through times of intense suffering. My prayer is that these guidelines help parents encourage their children, build for them a solid foundation for facing trials, and prepare their families for Christ’s eternal rest.

Savor the Scriptures

As in my daughter’s case, a long battle with suffering can stir up questions about God’s nearness and love. To guide children through such troubling moments, ingrain the Scriptures on their little hearts and minds. As a child, one of the most transformative things my mother ever did for me was to plaster Bible verses throughout our house — anywhere she knew I would look. The word of God is not bound or bedridden but living and active, even in a home with tears (2 Timothy 2:9; Hebrews 4:12).

To implant Scripture in a little suffering heart, invite your son or daughter to picture what a verse reveals about God. For example, consider Zephaniah 3:17: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” A mental picture of singing in this verse can help children to conceptualize and draw strength from God’s grace: “Do you know how Mommy sings over you and tucks you in each night? I do that because I love you, but do you know what? Your heavenly Father sings over you and loves you far more than I ever could!” Don’t discount children’s abilities to grasp profound truths through biblical imagery.

Teach Them to Pray

When we moved to a new city, my daughter worried about how her peers would perceive her diagnosis. Hopping out of the school car line felt like embarking on one of the biggest challenges of her life. As we locked eyes, I reminded her that even though I couldn’t hold her hand as she walked down the hallway, she had the best helper in the world: the Holy Spirit (John 14:26). “You can talk to God anytime, anywhere,” I told her. “He is near and ready to listen” (Psalm 34:15–18; Psalm 145:18).

Children in pain need assurance that God is eager to hear their prayers (1 John 5:14). Through the years, I’ve shared with my daughter stories about how I incorporated into my prayer life what John Piper calls the “wartime walkie-talkie” — direct access to God in the middle of the battle. Although Pastor John speaks of this dynamic in missions, I found it equally relevant in elementary school. A nurse escorted me from class multiple times a day to tend to my medical issues, and as curious kids whispered to each other and pointed at me, I felt defeated. But I also remembered I wasn’t alone, and I prayed under my breath, “Lord, please be with me. Make me strong. Make me brave.” And he did.

God doesn’t always answer prayers as we expect. In my daughter’s case, I reminded her that God’s character does not change (Malachi 3:6) and that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8:35–39), even when healing does not come in the way we hoped. He promises never to leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5–6). Sharing personal stories like these can help your children to place their burdens upon the Lord (1 Peter 5:7), reminding them that they aren’t alone, that Christ is Savior and sustainer, and that he’s always ready to receive their prayers.

Give Them God Himself

One night, as I was tucking my daughter into bed, she pointed to an old scar from where I had open-heart surgery. She asked, “Mommy, why does the cancer keep coming back?” I gently responded, “I don’t know, sweetie.” Because that’s the truth. I don’t know. I continued with a bedside lesson on Genesis 3, but I knew that’s not what she was asking. She needed what the Puritans often called “experimental religion”: theology that moves the heart.

As a parent, it can feel daunting when your children need quick (and deep) theological answers to satisfy their little hearts. I can’t give my daughter every answer she is looking for about her suffering. But there’s still plenty to tell. I can confidently say, “I don’t know how your story will unfold, but I know the one who does, and he loves you so much.”

As simple as it sounds, the best answer for our children’s spiritual questions is God himself. Help your child get to know the one who holds the universe in his hands. Point them to Jesus, who took on flesh, entered our broken world, and suffered for us. In Christ, we see the goodness of God made visible (John 14:9). This is where our great comfort lies — not in explaining the intricacies of theodicy, but in knowing that God is unimaginably good, that he is holding us in his hands, and that there is no safer place to be (Psalm 34:8).

Share How Suffering Shapes the Heart

In the midst of her suffering, our daughter notices people the world overlooks. Her heart quickly swells with concern when she sees someone in pain. She even cries for these image-bearers in her nightly prayers. And I have no doubt that God formed this softness in her through her suffering. Similarly, the very things I once despised about my body — my health challenges and scars — God has used to produce fruit in my life and keep my heart close to his. He’s also used my suffering to help my daughter through hers.

Parents can help their children connect these providential dots. God brings beauty from ashes, and he often works in ways outside of our earnest requests (Isaiah 55:9). As David Mathis says, “Not one drop, not one ounce, not one moment of your sorrow and suffering will be wasted.” Encourage your children to take confidence in knowing God is working for their good, conforming them into the image of Christ, and preparing them for eternal glory (Romans 8:28–29; 2 Corinthians 4:17).

Hold Space for Sadness

In response to your child’s grief over trials, you might feel the human instinct to say, “Everything will be okay.” And in light of the resurrection, thank God that’s true. For God’s children, everything will work out for their good and his glory (Revelation 21:4). But we shouldn’t be afraid to sit with our kids in their sadness. God made sad feelings too. No emotion is too big for God to handle. In fact, throughout the Bible, lament signifies an abiding trust in God (Psalm 10; 13; 22).

The testimony of Joni Eareckson Tada has left an indelible mark on my life. Now my daughter holds Joni’s words close to her heart as well, particularly in regard to lament: “God has opened the door for you to lament, to bring to him your doubts and questions, wisely, honestly, and in humility. He bends his ear to his suffering people.” When we bring our fears and weaknesses to God’s capable hands, we show our kids that we’re children before God too.

I can’t change my daughter’s situation any more than I can predict if my cancer will return. But even if our circumstances don’t change, my daughter and I have the same set of eyes: the eyes of faith (2 Corinthians 4:18). And together we will look to the author and perfecter of our mutual faith (Hebrews 12:2). We’ll look to the cross together. We’ll persevere in prayer together. When trials come, we’ll suffer together. And we know our hope is secure because it isn’t found in the absence of suffering, but in the faithful hand of our heavenly Father.

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At some point today, you will encounter a task you need to do but would really rather not do.

You will stare with dread at your Anatomy and Physiology textbook. Or you will hear your three-year-old spill a jar of jellybeans across the kitchen floor. Or you will remember you have a technical report due today. Or you will see crusty dishes on the counter.

And in that moment, the voice of laziness may be loud in your mind. “Grab your phone” or “Grab a snack,” it will insist. Or perhaps more subtly: “Take care of other work first.” My own laziness loves to hide behind a show of hustle and bustle. I sometimes check a dozen tasks off my to-do list while neglecting the most necessary one, like a man sidestepping a large hole in his living-room floor to dust the shelves.

Scripture rouses our inner sluggard in many ways:

• “Look to the future,” says Proverbs 20:4, “and remember that laziness today brings pain tomorrow.”
• “Look to those around you,” says Proverbs 10:26, “and remember that laziness undermines love.”
• “Look to your own peace of mind,” says Ecclesiastes 5:12, “and remember the sweetness of the laborer’s sleep.”

Alongside these needed reminders, I’ve recently found help from another: There is no task, however unpleasant, that you cannot accomplish with joy.

Serve the Lord with Gladness

Laziness draws much of its power from one unstated belief: I cannot do the task set before me with joy. Therefore, if I’m going to do it, I will need to summon as much willpower as I can.

But that’s not true. You can read the textbook, sweep up the jellybeans, write the report, and clean the dishes with joy. You may not giggle as you work. You may not love the task so much that you spill more jellybeans just for fun. But the command to “serve the Lord with gladness” is not reserved for our favorite kinds of service (Psalm 100:2). The words apply everywhere and always. And if God commands gladness, God can give gladness.

The apostle Paul issued his own version of “serve the Lord with gladness” when he addressed bondservants in Ephesus. Servitude was not an enviable position in the ancient world. Thankless and tiresome duties filled many bondservants’ days. Yet Paul still called these brothers and sisters to “[render] service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man” (Ephesians 6:7).

For Christians, the opposite of laziness is not just working hard but working hard with gladness and a good will. I know that may sound discouraging — “You’re telling me I need to not only clean the dishes but somehow enjoy doing so?” But let’s reframe the call like this: In Christ, you don’t have to clean the dishes with a murmur and a grumble. You can actually do so with gladness. And if you believe you can do any task with gladness, you’re more likely to take the first step.

Where does that gladness come from, though? It comes from two little words in both Psalm 100:2 and Ephesians 6:7: “the Lord.” Whatever task you face, the Lord Jesus commissions you and promises to strengthen and reward you.

Jesus Commissions You

Several years ago, a friend prayed for me in a way that still strikes me. He said, “Father, please help Scott to do his work today as if Jesus himself had asked him to do it, as if Jesus himself were his boss.” I had never thought of my work that way — and what a difference it made.

Paul guides us to find the Lord Jesus in the details of our God-given callings. The Ephesian bondservants were first and foremost “bondservants of Christ” who “[rendered] service . . . to the Lord” (Ephesians 6:6–7). Or as he told bondservants in Colossae, “You are serving the Lord Christ” (Colossians 3:24). Day after day, these servants heard their masters command, “Make dinner” or “Clean the entryway” or “Deliver this letter.” But behind each instruction, Jesus wanted them to hear his voice.

How might you tidy your living room if Jesus himself asked you to do it? How might you take out the trash? How might you study for a test, or prepare a slideshow, or serve a hard-to-love church member? Would you receive the task differently if it came from the one who died for you, rose for you, and rescued you?

We tend to work gladly when we love the one we work for. And Christians work for the Lord Jesus in whatever we do, whether we ring up groceries, deliver packages, change diapers, or perform surgeries (Colossians 3:17). Our company is the Kingdom of Heaven. Our boss is Christ the Lord. So when you face an unpleasant task today, remember that the work comes from the one who has loved you with an everlasting love.

Of course, in a digital world like ours, not every task that comes our way is ours to handle; not every need we hear about is ours to meet. But if the work before us lies in the path of our life callings — as a husband or wife, father or mother, student or employee, and so on — then we can safely assume the work has come down from above.

Jesus Strengthens You

Sometimes, we look at a task before us, measure it against our own desire or strength, and wonder where in the world we’re going to find the resources we need. When nine-tenths of us begs to do anything except write the research paper or clear out the gutters, where does the one-tenth find help?

In Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, the great missionary to China gives us an image worth remembering as we face unwelcome work:

It little matters to my servant whether I send him to buy a few cash worth of things, or the most expensive articles. In either case he looks to me for the money and brings me the purchases. So, if God should place me in serious perplexity, must He not give me much guidance; in positions of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? (165)

Likewise, it little matters whether our Lord sends us to do a great, exciting task or one we would rather avoid our whole lives. If he should give us work that requires more strength than we have, won’t he also supply what we lack? Our Lord is no Pharaoh; if he bids us make bricks, won’t he give us the straw (Exodus 5:5–9)?

Too often, as I stare at some hard task, I assume my weakness and unwillingness are unchangeable. But when I think this way, I fail to account for the one “who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). I do not reckon with the possibility of serving “by the strength that God supplies” (1 Peter 4:11). I assume prayer has no power to change how I feel.

Jesus not only hands us the work we do. He also takes us by the hand and strengthens us for the work — if only we’ll look to him, depend on him, and trust in his promises. “Lord, help me serve you with gladness” is a request he loves to answer.

Jesus Rewards You

We will face harder tasks, of course, than homework and dishes. But don’t exclude these small duties from the work God has set before you and for which he will reward you. Isn’t it a reward to lie down at night spent but satisfied? Isn’t it a reward to say with Paul, “I worked hard . . . though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10)? Isn’t it a reward to hear even a whisper of our Lord’s “Well done”? If we can glorify God by eating and drinking (1 Corinthians 10:31), then we can glorify him by reading and writing and cleaning and serving and planning and any other little work our laziness tempts us to neglect.

What a kind Lord we have. If he thus commissions us, strengthens us, and rewards us, we don’t have to listen to our laziness when it tells us only drudgery and gloom lie ahead. We can instead look unpleasant tasks in the face, pray for help, and then, with God’s promises in hand, serve our Lord Jesus with gladness.

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“I’m so sorry I’m late.” As my son climbed into our minivan, my apology felt weak. I had misjudged the time — again. I didn’t leave any margin as I hurried to finish a project at home, so when another child needed care, the situation delayed me from picking up my waiting son. Then I hit extra traffic en route. Mom guilt weighed heavily on me as I realized running late was a pattern for me, even though it’s one I had hoped to avoid as a parent.

Many strategies and tools help us stay on schedule. Calendars, to-do lists, timers, alarms, and even a phone call from a friend can keep us accountable and remind us of our priorities and responsibilities. These tools serve me well, and I’ll keep using them. But even when I allow myself an extra fifteen to thirty minutes, say no to the extra chore, and keep a waiting child’s interests in mind (Philippians 2:3–4), there’s no guarantee I’ll arrive on time. First, I’m not in control. Any number of circumstances could interrupt my best-laid plans. What’s more, I’m limited. I get tired and forgetful. As much as I try to stay organized, I can’t always keep all the details straight.

Apologizing to my son was the right step, and he graciously forgave me. But here’s more good news to address the mom guilt that you and I feel: Only God is God. Only he is sufficient to meet both our needs and our children’s needs. Although he created us in his image, God’s omniscience, eternality, and power belong to him alone — and he promises to carry us when we fall (Psalm 37:24). So let God be God, and aim to be like him in the ways that you can be.

Let God Be God

Moms juggle so many responsibilities. Maybe you rock at time management, but you struggle to keep your house clean. Studying who God is and who we aren’t offers great encouragement to moms, because even though we might try to do it all, only God always completes his to-do list. God created us not as his equals but as creatures designed to depend on him (Genesis 1–3).

God declared to Israel there is no other like him: Only God is God (Deuteronomy 4:39). He reveals his true character in Scripture and ultimately through his Son, Jesus Christ, who “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15). Among God’s many attributes, some are unique to him (what theologians call “incommunicable”), and others he shares with us through the Holy Spirit (called “communicable”). Only God is self-existent and self-sufficient. He alone is all-powerful, all-knowing, and present everywhere. No one else is sovereign, eternal, incomprehensible, or unchangeable the way God is.

From pressures within and without, we can be tempted to co-opt God’s incommunicable attributes. We can try to be sovereign, striving to control uncertain situations or even our children’s behavior and speech. With the rise of digital technology, we can pretend to be all-knowing; it’s easy to ask an AI bot any question. We can think and act as if human self-sufficiency is a virtue instead of identifying its root: disguised pride.

Eventually, we reach our limits, and our meager efforts fail us. Real hope and peace reside not in false ideas of omnipotence but in surrender. We lean into God’s sovereignty. We trust that his watchful eye always presides over our children. We depend on God for his wisdom and strength instead of mustering our own.

Ultimately, God’s incommunicable attributes encourage me. They lift the burden of doing it all — and doing it all flawlessly — off my shoulders. Given my propensity to squeeze too much into too little time, it’s particularly comforting to know that God is eternal, so I don’t have to be. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, over the course of a lifetime may never be enough for me to accomplish my plans, but as “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last,” without beginning or end, God lives outside the constraints of time (Revelation 22:13). With him, “one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). As he is faithful and true, I can always depend on him — and so can my children.

Be Like God in the Ways You Can Be

God communicates — or shares — other aspects of his character with his children. God is holy, loving, merciful, just, good, patient, generous, and faithful. We will never attain the fullness of God’s character, but as believing women, through the Holy Spirit we can grow and bear fruit in God’s communicable attributes — and we should.

You’ve probably seen a bride wear a veil on her wedding day. Maybe you even wore one yourself. While the veil covers a bride’s face, she can’t see clearly, but when her veil is lifted, she sees her groom face to face. Moses wore a veil after he met with God on Mount Sinai because the Israelites could not bear to behold the glory of the Lord (Exodus 34:29–33; 2 Corinthians 3:7). The apostle Paul draws upon this imagery to describe what it’s like when we turn to Christ. No longer does Scripture appear blurry, but the Holy Spirit reveals God’s glory in a way we’ve never seen it before. Now, as believing women, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

As we behold the glories of Christ, we become more like him. We start to think, talk, and act like Jesus. We start to want what Jesus wants; things that once appealed to us don’t any longer. Dependent on the Lord, abiding in him, with his life-giving sap running through us, we bear fruit that matches his character: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23). God’s very patience in us enables us to respond more patiently than before. God’s very love in us flows to our families. Not perfectly, but with increasing measure, we reflect our Lord as we relate to our spouses, children, friends, neighbors, church members, and coworkers.

As Christian mothers, it’s our privilege and duty to teach our children about God, his character, and his ways. We’re called to show our children what it means to follow Jesus and become more like him (Deuteronomy 6:7). But God isn’t calling us to be perfect moms who always show up on time and have everything together. Instead, as forgiven moms, our mission is to point our children to our perfect Savior. When we surrender to him, God can use even our weakness and sin to magnify his attributes. Then we help our children understand how much we all need Jesus, the only sufficient Savior.

Moist summer greens dry into yellows, oranges, and reds. Soon, leaves swirl down in wind that has a bite. Birds fly south overhead. Light softens as the days shorten. Sweaters and fleeces come out. It’s fall. I love it! Yet every autumn pierces me. The year is ending — already. All these changes remind me that I’m ending too. I’m just as brief as a leaf’s final ride to the ground. Life runs away like time. But where does it go?

Humans are the only creatures on earth aware that we will die. We alone grieve the dying of a day, a season, or a life. Like a cold stripe in the warm water of a summer lake, the first chill of fall shocks us with the fact of mortality.

This pain, however, can be a gift. Christians, after all, are realists. We need not run from this ever-surprising sorrow. The theme of memento mori (“remember death”) has long been part of Christian wisdom. For the more completely we accept its reality, the more beautiful we find our hope in Christ to be. For these next few moments, let’s contrast perspectives about the passings of time and life through two writers whose work has endured.

Frost’s Stream That Runs Away

Robert Frost wrote a poem as a conversation between a young couple standing by a rushing stream. In “West-Running Brook,” he makes the connection between the water flowing away and our own mortality. He describes life as “the stream of everything that runs away.” “[Existence] seriously, sadly runs away / To fill the abyss’ void with emptiness,” he writes. He depicts that existence as “the universal cataract of death / That spends to nothingness.”

This piques my autumnal melancholy. All life hurries away — and maybe it’s just going into sheer nothingness. The void of death never gets filled because all we throw into it is the emptiness of nonexistence. Maybe these brief years are all there is to us.

Frost’s poem, however, doesn’t end in complete bleakness. As they watch the brook, the couple notices a continuous, small white patch amid the swift-flowing dark water. They realize the stream hits a rock just below its surface. There, perpetually, the water rises up and falls backward on itself. It’s as if something in the stream rushing away takes a glance toward where it has been.

The pair discusses what this wave means. It feels somehow like a sign for them. One says, “It is this backward motion toward the source, / Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in.” They’re saying that our awareness of living and dying — our pondering of what it means (even if it all means nothing) — is an essential quality of being human. We embrace the mystery of coming from some source and returning to it. That’s the way of the world, and we just have to make our peace with it.

I don’t find that comforting! Yes, biblical realism has always owned this perception that “all go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return” (Ecclesiastes 3:20). But we long for the hope of a better future. And that’s where our second writer comes in.

Athanasius on the Source

Athanasius, a fourth-century bishop and theologian, challenged the idea of our inevitable slide into decay and non-being. His essay On the Incarnation remains profoundly influential as it probes why the eternal Son of God came to us as the fully human Jesus.

We know from Genesis that death is the existential consequence of our first parents’ disobedience in the garden. Once, Adam and Eve had the opportunity to choose faithfulness and so receive eternal life in these bodies in this world. But their “transgression of the commandment returned them to the natural state, so that . . . they might rightly endure in time the corruption unto non-being” (On the Incarnation, 1.4). Their “No” to God’s command condemned the world to “bondage to corruption” (Romans 8:21). We could have received everlasting life, but in the fall we became “bereft of eternal being” (On the Incarnation, 1.4). Created out of nothing, our physical being was doomed to return to nothing but dust. We are all prisoners to the irreversibility of time and its flow toward death.

Yet in his eternal love, God desired and planned to save his people (Ephesians 2:4–5). How could this be done? Athanasius considers, in human terms, the dilemma that inspired the incarnation. The Lord promised that death must follow disobedience. He could not go back on his word. He had to fulfill the wages of sin, the penalty of decay and death (Romans 6:23). But how then could he save us? The triune God himself, as spirit, could not die a human death. So, in a stunningly brilliant plan, the Son took up a mortal body as his own. Athanasius says, “For we were the purpose of his embodiment, and for our salvation, he so loved human beings as to come to be and appear in a human body” (On the Incarnation, 1.4).

How does this help us? As the Son of God through whom all things were created, Jesus stands in personal relationship to each one he has made (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16). So, as a man who is also the Son of God, what Jesus did has enormous implications for any and all who will come to him. Jesus took the full force of the promised curse of death upon himself (Galatians 3:13). He fulfilled death’s entire claim on us. God’s word stands complete: Death for all does indeed follow sin. But Jesus has taken death on behalf of all (2 Corinthians 5:14–15). We in Christ will rise again to embodied eternal life (Romans 8:11).

Athanasius jubilantly restates this good news:

The death of all was completed in the lordly body, and also death and corruption were destroyed by the Word in it. For there was need of death, and death on behalf of all had to take place, so that what was required by all might occur. . . . [The Word] took to himself a body able to die, that he might offer it as his own on behalf of all and as himself suffering for all. (On the Incarnation, 4.20)

In Christ, life does, indeed, return to a source: Those who place their trust in him will dwell with the Father forever. While the streams of this fallen world flow toward nothingness, Jesus offers living water “welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

Life Runs Away to Christ

The autumn reminds us how “seriously, sadly” time runs away, seemingly into nothingness. Death comes. But Jesus has conquered death (1 Corinthians 15:54–57). It is now only momentary, not eternal, for those joined to him.

Fall pierces. It brings a memento mori written into creation. Life runs away. But now in Christ, we know where it goes. It flows into more life by the grace of the Son of God, who joined himself to our humanity forever in order to declare, “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death” (Revelation 1:18). This fall, as the leaves flutter down and the crisp wind stings your face — when your thoughts turn toward the endings of things — remember the one who gave his life for you. Rejoice in him. And run to him for life anew.

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