When A Believer's Loved One Dies In Front Of Their Eyes .. Unimaginable Ouch..
..Or It's Just Way Too Close For Comfort As Those We Care About Fade.. Almost Die ..And Yet All Things Are Working Together For Good!
Really? Some Nights Romans 8:28 Has Felt Too Heavy To Hold On To.
Let's Hold Onto Jesus Through It. God Is Close..Totally Trustworthy And His Word Remains True.
I remember when my second Nathan son died, and when my mom almost died from Covid. She came very close.
Glad my other loved ones haven't passed -- am thinking about other families today.
The NICU at 3 a.m. is no place for some two-dollar shiny bumper-sticker type of theology.
While a baby is gasping for air, please remember this, believer, a bright smile with a random partial quote of a verse can often feel like a band-aid slapped over a bullet wound.
What does it mean that we should be quick to listen and slow to speak (James 1:19)?
Context, context please, Bible context -- important! Romans 8:28 doesn’t tell us that all things happening at us are good.
Overwhelmed with parental suffering, dead children aren’t good, ventilators aren’t inherently good (might be good for someone later), and that intense grief with a mother’s empty arms is never good. But God, His unchanging promises, and living Word are still good ..and He is there for you and me.
All those things we believers experience that are not good—yes, even these things—can indeed be woven into God’s greater plan for eternal good. I don't reject any of Romans 8, the whole Bible is true. Read what it actually says for yourself.
Paul penned Romans 8:28–29 not from a TV studio, but from a cold cell, knowing execution was near. The Greek word synergeō means “to work together,” like separate forces combining to produce something neither could alone. God doesn’t call the wreckage good—He steps into it, bends it, redeems it. His “good” often looks like faith purified in fire, character hammered into steel, and ministry birthed from misery.
This promise is for “those who love God”—for the saved, not for mere casual Sunday posers or CEO tourists (mere Christmas and Easter Only church goers), but for active growing, ongoing lovers of Christ (children of the Father). And His good is measured not in temporary comfort, but in eternal conformity to Christlike character (lots of people don't ever read the following verse - Romans 8:29).
Blake’s NICU fight has been demolishing much for his family.
Jobs disrupted. Plans shattered. Nightmares, and sleep is gone—but this ongoingg fight has also revealed what desperate intercession, earnest prayer sounds like. It's revealing what trusting God looks like when all human control is gone. That’s the “good.” Not some sweet fairy-tale like ending, but a soul anchored in God's living Word (Jesus) as storms roar on.
Joseph’s brothers hated and were out to kill him, but they sold him instead. Paul was beaten and shipwrecked. Neither man’s pain was good in itself—but God forged something good from it all.
The best rescue and salvation for people is God's work (Genesis 50:20; Acts 9:16). “We are more than conquerors,” Paul wrote, because nothing at all—not death, demons, or dangerous disaster—can sever us from the love of God in Christ (See Romans 8:35–39).
Charles Spurgeon warned, “The world does not read the Bible; the world reads Christians.”
When pain comes, the world watches to see if our theology holds out. A God who only works when our preferences are met is not God—He’s an assistant. That's not the God of the Bible. But the true God can take hell’s worst attacks and weaponize those so to speak.. for heaven’s purposes.
"Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.." Matt. 6:11-12
This isn’t divine manipulation; it’s divine infiltration. God stepping into the ashes, not always to remove the fire, but to walk with us in it.
Again Barna research shows that nearly 65% of Christians say their deepest spiritual growth came through.. not around.. hardship—not through ease. That’s not surprising. Hymn writer William Cowper, who knew both depression and faith..this might sound kind of religious, but he put it like this:
"God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm."
Remember when Jesus went boardless and walked on the sea? So, believer, keep clinging to Christ in and through all storms!
Seek Him first when the monitors scream and your pastor walks in, know this: "the good" may not at all look like what you prayed for, but Jesus is good, considerate, kind and he is there for you! He can hold your hand and help you through this mess.
Being saved and walkin' in the Lord doesn't change what you have to deal with in this world. It changes how you (with the Bible, the Holy Spirit's anointed wisdom), deal with it (unto God's glory and for the benefit of other lost and saved people). The circumstances around us often change, the people change, the fickle feelings change, the methods change, but our loving God, His good promises, and His faithful word never do change. His loyalty, greater wisdom, and compassionate agape love are completely consistent. Let's also be consistent and share His message!
"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." Romans 8:28-29 nkjv
I know there really are unseen and seen consequences for breaking God's laws by sinning. I used to be lost as a lizard who enjoyed doing some sins. Yes, some of it can be fun for a season.
Sickness is a consequence of sin, but many sick people suffer here due to other people's sinning. Now I often think when a sinner gets physically sick or diseased, then God often allows a righteous person to also get that way too.. and hopefully that sick sinner will observe God supernatually helping the sick child of God and then choose to become a child of God in Christ as well.
"’For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.’ While the people were listening to this, Jesus proceeded to tell them a parable, because He was near Jerusalem and they thought the kingdom of God would appear imminently. So He said, ‘A man of noble birth went to a distant country to lay claim to his kingship and then return.." Luke 19:10-12a
Study Saul, who caused pai,n turned into Paul. Study his life again. It's a testament to how God really does works all things (even the bad things we experience) together for good.
Paul suffered too. Remember his shipwrecks, his beatings, his imprisonment, his murder attempts, his temporary blindness, and more—all within God’s plan to spread the gospel to lost Jews and Gentiles (see Acts 9:16 and 2 Corinthians 11:24–27).
Through it all, God remained sovereign and steadfastly working to bring about good and glorious results for people.
I love the Lord and Romans 8! After promising that God works all things together for our the good, Romans 8 concludes with the wonderful fact that God trumps everything that comes against Him and His children who belong to Him.
The reborn Christian is assured that zero, null, nada, nothing can ever separate them from God’s agape love:
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ..No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” Romans 8:35–39.
God is WAY powerful -- All-powerful. His love is everlasting, and His wisdom is wonderful and infinite. It doesn’t really matter who or what attempts to come against you to thwart God’s plan; no one and nothing can. See the context and think about where Paul is right now. All humans will exist forever in one of two places (God's holy Heaven or in Hell), but Christians will enjoy abundant and everlasting life. God will work all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
Does He allow a pattern here? (Prayfully look at the context):
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:15). Remember how it turned out for Job?
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“We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Paul still enjoys an abundant life and lives on minus chains.
“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). Hurting, rejected, sold off, accused, and jailed, Joseph received God's comfort and then became a comforter and provider for his brothers. (vv. 20-25).
Joseph firsthand knew painful betrayal, slavery, false pointing of the finger like the devil likes to do, and prison life. Job knew unthinkable loss. Paul knew harsh shipwrecks, lashes on the back, hunger, and heavy chains. None of it was good in and of itself, yet God’s own good emerged like gold from the heated fire of suffering.
Spurgeon said, “When you can’t trace His hand, trust His heart.”
Christians in and near Ecuador on On January 8 in 1956 were struggling to reconcile the vicious violence there with the sovereignty of God.
Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Peter Fleming, and Roger Youderian where waiting on a sandy riverbank, all eager to become friends and make contact with the Huaorani people. Then these guys got murdered - all five lay dead. Nothing about that was good!
Jim Elliot had written in his journal years before:
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
It took years to see what God would do there with those people.
The NICU is a place where those of this world are sometimes reading other hurting Christians (among other places)—and they want to see if our theology holds up under the fluorescent light and the shadow of death. Some who watch us hope we fail in order to somehow gain comfort from that.
I know statistics bear this out: Barna Research found that 65% of Christians point to seasons of pain as the turning points of their spiritual growth and going forward. Conversely, less than 15% attribute their deepest growth to seasons of ease. In other words, hardship, not comfort, often becomes the forge of faith.
Seems like most people who come to Christ to get right with the Father do so during times of pain, struggle, and suffering rather than during times of ease and prosperity.
William Cowper, no stranger to hurt, fears and some despair, wrote in his hymn:
"Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face."
Every single experience God gives to us believers is the perfect preparation for what's ahead -- that future that only He can see.
Helen Keller is a Christian who knew lifelong limitation -- she once said, “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened.”
Even professional secular voices sometimes stumble upon this same principle.
And yet for the believer, there is something even richer than character at stake—it is conformity to Christ, eternal reward, and the unshakable presence of God who will one day wipe every tear from our eyes (See Revelation 21:4).
This is why Paul can write, “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Light? Momentary? Only if you measure it against eternity.
This isn’t about divine manipulation—it’s about divine infiltration. Into our world where we live.
Jesus did that..came and lived here for us all.
And God steps into the fire today, even, not always to put it out, but to walk with us in it, like He did with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (See Daniel 3). Sometimes His “good” is seen in the miracle of deliverance, other times in the miracle of endurance on through (with Jesus leading).
"When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.
—John Rippon, How Firm a Foundation."
Man, how do adults even sleep near a NICU?
Those monitors blink a lot with the steady rhythm of delicate lives hanging by such fragile strands, their digital beeps the heartbeat of hope—and sometimes, putting out sounds of great loss.
The hospital shadows stretch across those clean white-tiled-walls, with the scent of antiseptic lingering in the air nearby.. like a cold reminder that we all are mortal and life here is brief.
Our world is filled with the brokenness from sin, the ravages of rebellion, and we see it daily.
I think I was born disobedient, loved to do that, so I needed to be born again. Now as a believer, I loathe what I used to love (that party lifestyle etc) and love what I used to loathe (Bible study, prayer, worship, fellowship with Christians in a healthy church). Man, God has put a new nature inside of me.
Hey believer, "continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." Philippians 2:12-13 nic
"But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." Hebrews 11:6 nkjv
Too many people are fighting against brokenness in their bodies today. It's so sad to see -- some of them are too small or too weak to fight for themselves! Pray like you mean it cuz you really do!
So when the monitors blare and the chaplain’s footsteps fall heavy on steril linoleum tiles, remember that: God is light and there is no darkness in Him. He’s “good” even when things don't look like what you prayed for. Let Jesus in.. let Him live big in you. He gets it, all of it, and His grace is sufficient for you. He and His good plan we can trust, even right here, even right now.
