She thought that she was all alone in her pain. She knew that God loved her, but she had forgotten that He was with her in her agony. And that’s why He sent me to her while she was sitting against that brick wall weeping one day.
I and a few girls on my team counsel students at our local high school. We usually talk with kids from a list that the teachers have given us to work through. Normally, we take three students out of class and take them to our classroom to provide encouragement, faith, and hope in Jesus Christ. We have had some amazingly fruitful discussions and have seen the Holy Spirit break through in many kids’ lives.
In one class period last week, we were only able to find two students to counsel. As I walked back to our room, someone caught my eye. I saw a girl sitting against a brick wall with her head in her hands and I clearly felt the Spirit speak, “Go. Talk to her.”
So I went.
As I got closer, I realized that this girl was weeping. Her clothes were torn and her hair was a mess. I sat down next to her, put my arm around her, and asked if she was okay. “I wish I was okay.” she replied and out came a story of brokenness. Her parents were drug addicts, involved with gangsters, verbally abusive, alcoholics, and lost. I listened to story after story of intense pain and suffering.
She told me that she had just been saved in August and that Jesus was everything to her. She told me what He had shown her and how He was speaking to her. She said she didn’t want to leave her family because she knew God had her with them for their salvation. She spoke to her parents of God’s goodness and grace, but they shouted at her and ridiculed her hope.
At the end, all she could say was, “I can’t take it any more. I just want to know what a normal family feels like. I can’t take it any more.”
As she was telling her story, I was feeling her pain. In that moment, God spoke to me too. I felt Him say, “I feel her pain too. I suffer when she suffers. I am with her in her agony.”
I told her what God was speaking to me about her, and she just wrapped her arms around me and wept again. As we hugged, I spoke words of God’s mercy and grace and strength in her life. I told her that this pain would not crush her because she had the strength of Christ in her frail body.
She told me that she wished that she could be with Jesus and tangibly feel His Presence now. I hugged her even tighter and said that God had sent me from America to be His arms and to speak His words to her in that very moment. I told her God had heard her. And He had provided for her months before the request had even left her lips. She wept and praised God.
She sat up. She looked at my eyes and said, “I knew that God was with me. But I never knew that He felt my pain and was with me in my suffering.” Tears ran down my face as I again felt the power of a God who condescends to feel the darts of hell that are headed straight for His children. He is not a stranger to our suffering. He stands in front of us. All of the blows pass through Him before they reach us.
This is what Jesus Christ offers us that Buddha, Allah, or any other god cannot give. He knows our sufferings. He loves us so much that He is with us always. And He is the Almighty God who suffers with us.
