Why Does God Allow So Much Suffering?

Sister Shebaily grew up in Arkansas as one of the only members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in her school. She faced religious persecution from classmates, teachers, and coaches. She went through years of surgeries on her knee, a tumor, an infection, an allergic reaction, and a season so dark she did not want to keep living. She was obedient. She was faithful. And she could not understand why God seemed to have forgotten her.

One night after surgery, at the bottom of everything, she prayed for an hour. When she was done, she felt nothing. So she started to draw.

In this episode of Choosing Jesus Christ, Sister Hawker sits down with Sister Shebaily, a missionary serving in the Idaho Falls Idaho Mission from Arkansas, to hear what happened when she drew herself into Gethsemane and the Savior came to find her there.

Born Into a Fight

Sister Shebaily's parents are both converts. Her father grew up Muslim in a family that serves as royal guard for the Prince of Saudi Arabia. When he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his family disowned him. He faced persecution for his faith and for his background simultaneously. Her mother struggled with her own health trials for years. Both of them showed their daughter what it looked like to rely on Jesus Christ when everything else gave out.

Sister Shebaily grew up carrying that inheritance and testing it. In fifth grade a teacher showed an anti-Church video to her Christian club and then asked each student their religion. Sister Shebaily sat in the back of the room, weighed the question, felt a quiet peace, and said: those are my missionaries and that is my church. She was ten years old.

The years that followed taught her exactly how much that answer would cost. Religious opposition. Physical trials. Surgeries that kept multiplying. A year when she was suicidal. Sports gone. Friends gone. A body that kept breaking down and a spirit that was being asked to hold.

The Night She Drew Gethsemane

After one surgery the news came back worse. A tumor. An infection. An allergic reaction. Everything physically wrong that could be wrong was wrong. She was also in the deepest part of her depression.

She prayed. She yelled, really, for about an hour. She poured everything out, mostly frustration. When it was over she felt nothing. No peace. No comfort. Just silence.

She decided to draw. She did not know what she was going to draw. She drew a garden. Then herself in the garden. The garden became Gethsemane. And she drew it not with an angel strengthening the Savior, the way the scripture reads, but with the Savior standing beside her as the one who strengthened her.

When she looked at what she had drawn, she heard his voice clearly. He told her this was her Gethsemane. That He had walked with her through it. Every moment in a classroom where she had to stand up and defend her beliefs. Every hour she lay alone not knowing if she had the capacity for another day. He had been there. He had felt it. He knew.

That was the first time she truly understood that Jesus Christ was not a story. That was the first time she knew He loved her with a perfect love.

The String Around God's Wrist

A few weeks later she came to church on crutches. A man she had never seen before held the door open and told her something she has never forgotten. He said that when you are going through the hardest moments of your life it feels like a string being pulled tighter and tighter. Like it is about to snap. Right when you are about to break, God wraps it around his wrist one more time and pulls it tighter. And when He does that, the string will not break. You will not break.

She heard that after the night in Gethsemane and believed it.

The years ahead were still hard. A relationship that eventually ended when she chose to serve a mission instead of marry. More surgeries. A boating accident that sent her back to the doctor's office crying. She sat there sobbing and told God she was trying. She felt Him remind her: I saw you through all of it before. I will see you through this.

He did. He has.

Suffering That Exalts

Sister Shebaily came to Idaho Falls asking God to send her people who understood suffering. She did not know what she was asking for. She got exactly that.

She has sat with people who have walked through loss, illness, grief, and darkness. She says suffering is not a sign that God has abandoned you. It is often the place where you walk closest with Him. It is in the suffering of others that we take their hand and place it in the Savior's. That, she says, is the best part of the gospel.

Her father's example shaped her. Her mother's faith shaped her. Both of them learned to let the Lord be their advocate when no one else was there. Sister Shebaily carries that lesson into every door she knocks.

She says joy is not circumstantial. It does not depend on a good day or a bad one, on a trial ending or continuing. Joy comes from love. Love for the Savior. Love for His children. That is the thing that does not break even when everything else does.

Key Takeaways

1. God does not always answer a prayer with peace. Sometimes the answer comes through what you create in the silence afterward. Sister Shebaily drew her way into a testimony.

2. Jesus Christ is our advocate. Not just a teaching. Not just a title. Someone who will never lose patience, never pull away, and never stop pleading on your behalf.

3. The string does not break. Hard things piling on top of hard things is not evidence that God has left. It can be evidence that He is holding on more tightly.

4. Suffering is meant to exalt us. Not punish us. Sister Shebaily learned this by watching her father and mother and by going through enough of her own to know it firsthand.

5. Joy is not based on circumstances. It is based on love. That is what makes it possible to have joy in the middle of a trial rather than waiting for the trial to end.

Listen to Sister Shebaily's full episode and every episode of the Choosing Jesus Christ Podcast. And if you are in a hard place right now, visit ChoosingJesusChrist.org. Our missionaries are ready to sit with you in it.