When Life Keeps Hurting, I Start Asking God Why
Yesterday, I slammed my finger in the window. It was already hurting. A few days earlier, a fence caught my ring while I was walking and pulled at it. Then there is the weight gain, all these perimenopause symptoms, my PC acting up, and the money stress. Where is my money? I am not sleeping at night, even when I take sleep aids. I am tired. I am sleepy. I do not know how much more I can take.
In the middle of all of it, I started wondering: Is God just laughing at me?
I know He is not asking me to perform. I know He is about love. But I could not feel that love in the moment. I wanted some relief. I needed help. I felt like I was out here on my own, even though I knew He was there. Then I wondered if I had hurt Him badly and was being punished. Maybe that was not fair of me to think. I still could not stop feeling hurt.
I wake up to a beautiful view every morning, and I know things could be worse. Trust me, I know. But that does not cancel out how I feel. I can be grateful for the view and still be exhausted, worried, and disappointed. I can know God is there and still wonder why I cannot feel His love.
Three hours later, I seemed to be fine.
That shift did not mean I was pretending before. It showed me how quickly my feelings had changed. What I feel and what I know are not always the same. I know God is there. I know He will not ghost me or forsake me. I know those things deep down. But knowing them does not mean I can always feel His comfort in the moment.
Sometimes I feel like I am in a dysfunctional relationship with God. I even used the words “abusive relationship.” I do not know who would be the abusive one in that comparison. Is it me, because I neglected Him for most of my life and came to Him later, expecting a miracle turnaround? I do not expect everything to go perfectly. But it feels like so much has fallen apart around me.
One minute, I feel His comfort and love. I feel like He is going to take care of me, like He is speaking to me. Then it feels like nothing. I feel ghosted, even though I know He will not ghost me. That gap between what I know and what I feel hurts. I know I love Him. I believe He is the best thing that has happened to me. So why does this relationship sometimes hurt so badly?
I keep wondering whether it would have hurt more if I did not know Him the way I do today. Two years ago, I thought I was on my own for real, responsible for handling everything by myself. I think I would have had less joy and peace then. It may not have felt joyful when I slammed my finger or when my computer stopped pulling in my information, but I did not face those moments with the same belief that I was completely alone.
Even while I was upset, I still knew who my Father, Creator, and Sustainer was. I was still grateful. I still loved Him. I had “faith over fear” and “faith over feelings” in my bedroom and office as reminders. I am glad those reminders are there. I am also learning that a reminder does not switch off a feeling. I can be in an emotional state and still know who God is. That does not make the emotion disappear.
Then I noticed something about how I handled the day. While all of this was happening, I was determined not to get pissed, throw a tantrum, become mean-spirited, throw things, or get angry the way I might have before. I was disappointed. I had a crying session. I was in my emotions, but I was not screaming, hollering, or trying to bite anybody. I kept my composure. I did not show the same personality and characteristics I had when I first started this business.
I will take that as a win.
Not because everything is fine now. Not because I have an answer for why this season feels so hard. I do not. The pain, the sleep trouble, the money worry, and the questions are still real. But I noticed that in the middle of all of it, I did not respond the way I used to. That matters to me. It is one real change I can name without pretending the rest is resolved.
What I found while following these questions
These are scriptural and factual lenses I found while working through the questions in this entry. They are ideas to consider, not claims that explain away my feelings or tell me what God is doing.
The Bible gives people words for feeling forgotten. Psalm 13 begins with the psalmist asking how long God will seem to forget him. The psalm moves toward trust, but it does not begin by hiding the feeling. Psalm 88 is another lament that ends in darkness rather than a neat emotional turnaround. Those psalms give me room to say that I feel forgotten without pretending I already feel comforted. They do not prove what God is doing in my situation. (Psalm 13; Psalm 88.)
Scripture warns against assuming hardship proves personal punishment. In John 9:1–3, Jesus rejects the disciples’ assumption that a man’s blindness must have been caused by his or his parents’ sin. That passage does not explain every kind of suffering, and it does not mean choices never have consequences. It does challenge the quick conclusion that something painful happening to me proves I am being punished for coming to God late or failing Him.
Elijah’s story includes physical care before the next assignment. In 1 Kings 19, Elijah is afraid and exhausted. He sleeps, receives food and water, sleeps again, and receives more food before continuing. The story does not promise that sleep or food will solve every kind of distress. It does show that physical need is part of the scene, not evidence that someone has failed spiritually. I can consider how little sleep, pain, and perimenopause may be affecting how I feel without deciding that they are the whole explanation.
There is a factual reason to consider sleep and perimenopause as context. The National Institute on Aging and ACOG describe sleep problems and mood changes as possible parts of the menopausal transition. ACOG also notes that poor-quality or insufficient sleep can make emotional control and coping harder. That makes sleep and perimenopause reasonable context to consider. It cannot tell me exactly why my feelings shifted after three hours, and it does not make the feelings less real.
A painful thought is not enough to identify its source. The Bible speaks about the devil as an adversary, but this entry alone cannot show that the thought “God is hurting me” came from the devil. It could be a fear that surfaced while I was overwhelmed. I can examine it against Scripture without declaring a spiritual cause I cannot know.
None of these ideas settles how I feel about God today. They give me more ways to understand the questions, and I can decide which ones belong in my reflection.
Questions I am still working through
- Is God laughing at me when one painful thing follows another?
- Why can I know God is there and still not feel His love or comfort?
- Am I being punished, or am I interpreting hardship as punishment because I feel overwhelmed?
- Could the thought that God is hurting me be the devil messing with my head? What can I know, and what can I not know, from the thought alone?
- Can faith be present while I feel angry, disappointed, hurt, or afraid?
- How do perimenopause symptoms, pain, and lack of sleep affect my emotions, without becoming an explanation for everything?
- Would these hard moments feel different if I still believed I was completely on my own?
- What does growth look like when the problems remain but my response changes?
- How can I be grateful for what is beautiful and still be honest about what hurts?