When Tragedy Shatters Your Faith: Finding the Infinite God in Suffering

A Glimpse of the Infinite

I thought I understood You, Lord. I had built a tidy picture in my mind, a God who moved in predictable ways, who answered prayers the way I expected, who shielded those who loved Him from the worst of the world. I spoke of Your kindness as if it were a contract, Your protection as if it were guaranteed. I lived as though faith meant never having to face the unbearable. I had confined You to the boundaries of my own understanding, small enough to manage, safe enough to control.

Then the storm broke. Everything I counted on was torn away in a moment. Like Job, I sat in the ashes of what used to be my life. Like Habakkuk, I lifted my voice in raw protest: “How long will I cry out and You seem silent? Why do You let me see such ruin? Why does violence triumph while the innocent suffer? Why does grief swallow the ones who trusted You?” The loss was sudden, merciless. Loved ones gone. Health shattered. Hope buried. The future I had imagined, gone without warning.

In the darkness I demanded answers. I wanted explanations that fit inside my reason, reasons that would make the pain feel fair. I questioned Your goodness, Your power, Your very presence. If You are sovereign, why this? If You are loving, how could You allow it?

Your reply did not come wrapped in tidy logic. It came like it did to Habakkuk, astonishing, almost unsettling: “Watch what I will do among the nations. You would not believe it if I told you plainly.” You work in ways that stagger the mind, through paths we cannot trace, with purposes that dwell far beyond our grasp. You do not always explain the suffering. You reveal Yourself in the midst of it.

And there, in the wreckage, something shifted. The tragedy that took so much also stripped away my illusions. For the first time, I saw how small my vision of You had been. I had been standing at the edge of a quiet lake, thinking it was the sea. But grief dragged me to the shore of something vast, untamed, overwhelming.

We have lost more than words can hold. The voices we will never hear again. The plans that will never unfold. The sense of safety that once let us sleep without fear. The ordinary joys that tragedy turned into memories too painful to touch. The ache remains, a hollow place that echoes every day. We miss them. We miss what life was before the breaking.

Yet in the losing, something unthinkable happened: we found You. Not the limited God I had shaped to fit my comfort, but the true God: immense, untouchable in glory, boundless in power and wisdom. The One who speaks galaxies into being and still knows every tear that falls. The One whose righteousness burns like fire, whose mercy reaches deeper than any wound. The One before whom the heavens themselves bow in ceaseless wonder.

I had only ever skimmed the surface of who You are. Now, through eyes washed by tears, I catch the faintest edge of Your greatness, a brightness that blinds and heals at once. You are higher than my highest thought, deeper than my deepest pain. You hold the storm in Your hand, and You hold me still.

The loss is real, and it will always be. But the gain is greater still: a nearer sight of You. A heart humbled, enlarged, awakened to Your majesty. In the place where everything else was taken, You remain. And You are more than enough.

So I bow, not because the pain makes sense, but because You are who You are. Sovereign. Holy. Infinite. Worthy of trust even when I cannot see. Worthy of worship even through tears.

You are greater than my grief.

You are the One the angels cannot stop praising.

You are the God who turns ashes into glimpses of glory.

And knowing You more (truly more) is valuable to me.

You are a treasure now.

Nothing makes sense without You.