An important, but often very painful, job of a parent is taking your beautiful, HEALTHY little ones to the doctor for their "well-child visits." The reason I referred to these as "painful" is because they typically involve your perfect little bundle of joy receiving their "shots." Now, I know there is much debate over the safety and necessity of vaccines and I am not writing this to start another one. I am merely attempting to use vaccinations as an illustration of how an immensely loving God can mistakenly appear as not so loving and how a Heavenly Father can use our pain to make us "stronger."
Do we (parents) ENJOY taking our "well-children" to the doctor for something that can illicit such shrill, loud, and distressful screaming? Most of us (parents) would say, "NO!" ¹ So why did I, as a doctor, advise parents to put their sweet, innocent, helpless, little kids through such pain? Why did I, as a father, put my very own offspring through the agony? The reason is because I felt these "shots" or vaccinations were ultimately good for their health. I wanted my patients, and my own children, to build their immunity and be safe from contracting these dangerous, and potentially deadly, diseases.
Now, as an earthly father, I love my children more than almost anything and "hopefully" know what's best for them. So when we understand that our Heavenly Father loves His children (us) infinitely more than we could ever love our own and also knows infinitely more than we could ever know, it should give us hope when we are going through something painful. It should give us the strength and courage to endure something that makes no sense at all because we know our Father is always at work and always in control.
We must learn to trust that a loving God will do whatever it takes to help us, His children, understand how big He is and how small we are. We must learn to trust God for a future that only He can see. And we must learn to trust God even when we're hurting because we know He can bring purpose to our pain.
¹ Contrary to popular belief, we (doctors) don't get any pleasure from "giving" vaccines. That's why I would order my nurse to administer them, abruptly leave the room, and not show my face again until all crying had ceased. (Former nursing staff, will you please accept my apology for placing all the blame on you?)