The Afterword

Tag: suffering

  • Learning to Sit with Suffering

    —

    by

    Peter
    in

    What’s a skill you consider basic, that most peopledon’t actually know how to do? Sitting with someone who is suffering seems like a basic human skill. It is also one of the hardest. As a young man in my twenties, I regularly visited people in an oncology ward. They were experiencing all kinds of emotions.…

  • Presence

    —

    by

    Peter
    in

    Do you think everything happens for a reason? I have written before about Kate Bowler, the Duke University professor whose doctoral research examined the North American church’s obsession with wealth, health and success. Then, while still a young academic, she found herself living inside the questions she had studied. She was diagnosed with Stage 4…

  • An Opportunity to Serve Him – 1 Peter 3:8–22

    —

    by

    Peter
    in

    In some corners of the worldto follow You is to risk everything—a North Korean labour camp,a Somali beating,a Yemeni home where owning a Bibleis a dangerous act.One in seven of Your peopleknows this intimately. Even here,where streets are safeand speech is free,faith can still feel costly—misunderstood,dismissed,pushed to the edges.And when pressure rises,many of us bend,blend…

  • The Podcasts That Form Me

    —

    by

    Peter
    in

    What podcasts are you listening to? I listen to podcasts the way some people tend a garden — slowly, regularly, and with gratitude for the voices that keep me company as I walk. These aren’t simply sources of information; they are companions. Each, in its own way, helps me see, lead, and listen differently. Kate…

  • Why Does God Allow Suffering? – Psalm 23, Revelation 21:1-5

    —

    by

    Peter
    in

    I don’t need to persuade you—the evidence is all around:a child’s bruised silence,a friend’s lost job,cancer cells multiplying unseen,an earthquake flattening homes in Afghanistan,a surfer pulled under by a shark,young people shot at a music festival,sixty thousand gone in Gaza. If you are loving,wouldn’t you stop this?If you are powerful,couldn’t you stop this?And if you…