Why, God?

 “This night, all of you will have your faith in Me shaken...” Matthew 26:31

Jesus knew His disciples would have a difficult time continuing to believe in Him that night of the Passover. Although Peter said to Him in reply, “Though all may have their faith in You shaken, mine will never be,” Jesus knew Peter would deny Him three times. Sure enough, before the night was over, Peter had said he did not know Jesus three times. Peter wept bitterly at his betrayal of His master and Lord. 

We can’t escape trials. We ask God sometimes why are You allowing this to happen? Like when Emma McKinley lost her balance while she was at work in 1993, and fell from a storage loft. She struck her head, passed out, and developed a widespread nerve disorder that left her in pain and dependent on a wheelchair. Why God? she asked as her condition progressed. 

Her neck and spine twisted, blood clots formed in her legs and doctors urged her to have her legs amputated. Still, she prayed for healing and held fast to her hope in Jesus. Two nights before Christmas in 2011, Emma was alone at home. She fell from her wheelchair and was unable to get up for 8 hours. Then she saw Jesus come to her in a bright white robe. When He raised her to her feet, her bones cracked, and together they began to walk. Emma later said, “Jesus has never let me down. His Word promises He will never leave us or forsake us.”

Jesus knows that there are times that will test our faith, that will shake our trust in Him just like that night of the Passover. After the meal, He led the disciples to Gethsemane, where He told them to keep watch with Him and pray for an hour. He always found them asleep! I am sure if they prayed with Him, they would have been stronger and would have been given the grace to understand. And so it is with us. 

We need to pray for grace even if we do not deserve it. Grace is power. St. Paul wrote, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor. 15:10). We know that St. Paul was a powerhouse of the early Church, but it was the grace of God working in him that made him what he was.  Like the apostles and St. Paul, and Emma McKinley, we need grace to get us through these dark times with our faith stronger than ever.