1 Kings 17:17-18 “Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. She said to Elijah, ‘What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”

Few things tempt us to doubt God more than suffering. It is the main reason the Apostle Peter wrote his first letter. It has inspired books like Why Bad things Happen to Good People or Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants. It became a problem for the widow who offered food and shelter to the prophet Elijah and took him into her home.

Children get sick and die every day in our world. Worldwide, over three million children die before they are five years old, or a little over 4%. In our own country, about 4000 children will die before they turn four, and another 5000 will die before they turn fourteen. That’s a small percentage of the population, but still a lot of people.

In Elijah’s day the mortality rate for such young people was probably more like one out of two or worse. There was a famine going on in the land. Childhood death was common.

But that didn’t make it easy. It can be hard enough to understand why God lets us suffer ourselves. When our children suffer or die, it is even harder. It doesn’t seem fair, somehow. The children may not be perfect, but compared to adults their sins seem relatively mild and few. Why should their lives be cut off?

Adding to a parent’s torment is the natural affection we have for our children. Something more dear than all our possessions is being taken away. We have a helpless, powerless feeling when all we can do is stand by and watch some disease or condition have its way with our child.

On top of this, the widow in our story was losing her only child. Now her family was gone. She was all alone in this world. Someday, when she became old, there would be no one to take care of her.

So this personal tragedy was sad, and hard. It was also a trial for her faith. “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?” she asks the prophet. How do I explain such a painful, scary thing? Today some people choose to believe that incidents like this are evidence for God’s non-existence. Their own existence is all a big accident. We are all alone in a senseless universe with no meaning or purpose. Others get mad at God and accuse him of being cruel and unfair.

Some believe that God is punishing them, as the widow here. A past sin is coming back to bite them. God is angry, and they are now being forced to pay for their past crimes or misdeeds. That adds a spiritual crisis to the personal loss we are already suffering. We won’t long be able to trust a God we are convinced is living in our past, who won’t let our mistakes go, who is set on making us pay for our sins years after we have committed them. Our hearts are wounded, and like the widow in the story we need the power of God’s mercy to come and address our doubts.

Let me point out that this is why your pastor visits you in the hospital or in a time of personal tragedy. Perhaps that’s obvious. He does not come with physical healing powers, nor is he a doctor. He won’t be bringing anyone back from the dead.

But your pastor has the cure for your guilt. He gives you something to nourish a lagging faith: God is love. His dealings with you begin and end with grace. He forgives your past. He will bless and transform your present. He has secured your future. Maybe his mercies aren’t always easy for us to see. But they are there, no less than his grace. They are filled with power to work on our hearts and address our doubts, even when life hurts more than we can bear.