What follows is an edited version of an email I sent to a friend who faced a heartbreaking situation involving a family member. I’m sharing it because it can apply to any faithful, godly person dealing with tragic events caused by a child’s, spouse’s, or parent’s bad choices. If that’s you, may our Heavenly Father use these words to encourage, strengthen, and comfort you.
When hearing about painful family situations that many of God’s people face, words fail me, so let me share some things from His Word, which will never fail and which will not return to God empty without accomplishing His purpose (see Isaiah 55:11).
God knows what it’s like to pour His heart into beloved people and not see lasting change. He calls Israel His bride and then His vineyard and says in Isaiah 5, “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?”
He doesn’t simply understand your broken heart because He knows everything; He understands because His heart has also been broken. Jesus is the God-man, tested in every way we are (Hebrews 4:15), including heartbreak. He wept over the people He loved, that same Jerusalem:
As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” (Luke 19:41-44)
Your faithfulness and love and prayers for your family member have not been unnoticed by the eyes of Heaven. Jesus said, “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward” (Matthew 10:42). Those who have faithfully loved and prayed for their family members have done far more than give them a cup of cold water. They have given their hearts.
Rest assured that God has seen all your lonely and despairing moments, and all your tears. He does not forget—in fact, He makes a permanent record which will be documentation for the abundant reward He will one day joyfully give you: “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book” (Psalm 56:8).
God’s eyes are as wide open to you as His heart is. He is by nature a Rewarder (Hebrews 11:6), and while you may not be thinking of the reward as you faithfully love and pray for your family member, nevertheless it will be His delight to reward you, and that reward will be great. He wants that reality to comfort you. Even if it seems like your love and God’s love for your family member hasn’t yielded the fruit you have prayed for, remember that “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them” (Hebrews 6:10).
As you move forward with your life, may you sense His love even in the heartache. “The LORD is for me; I will not fear; What can man do to me?” (Psalm 118:6). Or as He says in Romans 8, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” and “Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” As He said to Abraham in Genesis 15, “Do not be afraid. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”
God is not done with Jerusalem yet, and He can still touch your family member too, perhaps all the more in the ashes of their derailed life. In Isaiah 65 He promises all of us a new heavens and New Earth, then says, “But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more” (v. 18-19).
After God Himself (Immanuel, God with us) promises to come down to forever live with His people in the New Jerusalem on the New Earth, He says in Revelation 21:4, “God will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
Yes, the day hasn’t yet come when God will “wipe away every tear.” But it will come.
In the meantime, God can give us hope for a future where He will heal all our hurts and where our laughter and joy will be as unending as His. May we sense His presence with us here and now, even in the midst of life’s greatest difficulties. This is not the end of the story, and His blood-bought promise is to make all things right forever.
