As I grieved our losses and trials, I, like Elisabeth Elliot, realized not all suffering falls into neat and tidy boxes. We can’t simply assess our pain and drop it into the right category and then deduce the results that should follow. Some, if not most, suffering is beyond our understanding.

The night before the cross, Jesus took his friends to a common place: the Garden of Gethsemane. He knew His suffering, humiliation, and death were near, but He didn’t hide. Instead, He prayed and asked His closest friends to pray with Him. In this prayer, he instructs us how to pray in the midst of our suffering.

Theology is easier to articulate in articles, books, and journals than it is lived out. It’s one thing to claim that God is sovereign, and it’s another to see him take away and find a way to praise his name. Learning theology comes in two parts. There’s the time in the classroom (or on the couch with a good book) and there’s the time of living it out.

This is when I picked up Glenna’s book, The Promise is His Presence. In her book, Glenna took me by the hand and led me through her story of suffering, waiting, and unanswered prayers alongside the redemption narrative of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.