There are seasons in life that don't make sense from the outside. Seasons where suffering arrives uninvited, stays longer than expected, and leaves marks you didn't ask for. If you've lived long enough — and most of us reading this have — you know exactly what that feels like.
Recently, the story of Jordan Peterson and his family has been in the news again. His daughter Mikhaila has spoken publicly about her father's ongoing battle with akathisia, a severe neurological condition he has described as one of the most difficult experiences of his life. Whatever you may think of Peterson or his public work, the human reality here is hard to ignore: a father suffering, a daughter watching, a family holding on.
It raises a question worth sitting with — especially for those of us who have walked with God for many years.
What does faith actually look like when life becomes unbearable?
Suffering Is Not a Sign of Forgotten Faith
One of the quiet lies that can settle into a longtime believer's heart is this: if I'm suffering deeply, something must be wrong — with me, with my prayers, with my faith.
But Scripture tells a different story. The Psalms are full of honest cries from people who loved God and still found themselves in darkness. Paul wrote from prison. Job lost everything and still wrestled his way toward God. The early church knew suffering not as an exception to faith, but as part of the road.
Suffering does not mean God has looked away. It means you are on the same road as every faithful person who came before you.
The Gift of Long Obedience
Those of you who have been walking with God for decades carry something that cannot be rushed — a kind of quiet, tested certainty. You've prayed through things that didn't resolve quickly. You've trusted God in seasons when trust was the only thing left. You've learned that He is faithful, not because life has always been easy, but because He has shown up consistently in the hard places.
Eugene Peterson once described the Christian life as "a long obedience in the same direction." That phrase lands differently when you're sixty or seventy years old and can look back at the road behind you. You've lived it. That's not a small thing.
When suffering comes now — whether it's your own health, the grief of losing someone dear, the ache of watching a child or grandchild struggle — you bring to that moment everything God has built in you over a lifetime. That's not a platitude. That's a real and costly gift.
Watching Someone You Love Suffer
There is a particular kind of pain in watching someone you love go through something you can't fix. Mikhaila Peterson, watching her father struggle through a devastating year, knows something of this. And so do many of you.
Maybe you've watched a spouse decline slowly. Maybe you've sat bedside with a parent and held their hand when there were no more words. Maybe you're watching a grandchild make choices that break your heart. The helplessness of loving someone who is suffering is one of the heaviest things a person can carry.
But even there, your presence matters. Your prayers matter. Your faithfulness — showing up, staying near, holding on to God on their behalf — matters more than you know.
Lamentations 3:22–23 says, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning." That's not a verse you read once. It's a truth you return to, morning after morning, year after year, until you know it in your bones.
Faith That Has Been Tested Is Faith That Can Hold
There is a difference between faith that has only been read about and faith that has been lived through. You know the difference. You've earned it.
This Easter season reminds us that the story doesn't end at the grave. Resurrection is real. The God who raised Christ from the dead is the same God who meets us in our most helpless moments and refuses to let the darkness have the final word.
If you're in a hard season right now — or if you're walking alongside someone who is — this is not the time to pretend. It's the time to lean into the God who has carried you before and will carry you again.
A Word of Invitation
You don't have to carry this alone. There is a community here at Outpouring Worship Center that has been praying together, weeping together, and trusting God together for over fifty years. If you need prayer, come. If you need someone to sit with you in the hard place, we're here.
The road of faith is long. But it is not walked alone.