Faith in the hard times

C. J. Mahaney tells this story of his older sister Sharon:

A few Christmases ago, as our extended family gathered to celebrate, Sharon’s husband, Dave, mentioned some physical difficulties he was experiencing, so I gathered family members to pray for him. No one imagined the source or the severity of the symptoms he described; within a week, Dave was diagnosed with a brain tumour. It was a particularly aggressive tumour, as we all soon learned. After surgery and unsuccessful chemotherapy, it wasn’t long before Dave was brought home from hospital and placed under hospice care to await what now appeared inevitable, and which indeed came quickly. Dave went to be with the Lord.
During those last few weeks, Dave’s bed was set up in the centre of their living room, where a parade of caring people visited him. Sharon would often sit beside him and stroke his hair and, whether he was conscious or not, speak into his ear, telling her “bud” what a wonderful, godly husband and father he was.
On one occasion, a relative of Dave was visiting, a man who was not a Christian. As he watched Sharon caring for Dave and thought about Dave’s relative youth and the children he would leave behind, anger seemed to well up from within him—anger directed at the God whom Dave and Sharon were professing to believe in.
He asked Sharon, “Why aren’t you angry?”
She turned to him and answered with the truth of the gospel: “Dave deserved hell for his sins, just like you and me, and yet God, in His mercy, forgave him because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Dave is going to heaven,” she said. “How could I be angry at God for taking him to heaven?”
It was an answer I’m sure he wasn’t expecting, and one that I doubt he’ll ever forget. . . .
My sister had profoundly demonstrated the divine perspective in suffering that comes so hard for most of us. In her severe trial, Sharon’s preoccupation was not her own suffering, painful and real though it was. Instead, her focus was on the grace of God. That grace, through the Saviour, provided salvation for her husband and strength for herself in the midst of suffering . . .’