Human suffering. I've seen so much of it these past couple of weeks that the idea of living alone on a desert island is sounding appealing.

• Dozens of people shot in a cold-blooded massacre at a nightclub.
• ​An Ohio woman charged with trafficking her 11-year-old daughter for sex to feed her heroin addiction.
• Parents experiencing the death of their son in an ungodly alligator attack in Disney World, of all places.

I had to stop watching the news. I couldn't bear to see any more anguish.

But human suffering continued to infiltrate my world. It crept into my private circles. In just the past few days, people have talked with me--people I know and care about--who are dealing with debilitating depression, cancer diagnoses, childhood sexual abuse, broken marriage vows, even thoughts of ending their lives.

Even though I've been a Christian my entire life I still find myself asking, Where is God in all this suffering? And that's when I begin again to understand that, in times of suffering, it is not the loss of loved ones, the loss of innocence, the loss of ability, or the loss of relationships that wrenches our souls. It is the loss of hope.

Dr. Myron J. Taylor once wrote, “The real sting of suffering is not misfortune itself, nor even the pain or the injustice of it, but the apparent God-forsakenness of it. Pain is endurable, but the seeming indifference of God is not.”

Although suffering makes it seem that God is indifferent it is clear from Scripture that He is not. He cares deeply when His children are hurting. In fact, He suffers with us. He grieves when His children grieve.

Suffering was never part of His plan for His kids. He created for us a perfect world. A world that knew nothing of terrorism or tragedy, of sickness or sorrow. A world in which there was a perfect relationship between the Creator and the created. A world in which He simply delighted in being with us. Then sin entered that world and messed everything up. No one grieves that more than God.

And yet we have hope. Because God is still with us. He accompanies us on our often heartrending journey, but not as an oblivious onlooker. He selflessly, compassionately offers us what we need--healing for our broken hearts, rest for our weary souls, strength that is made perfect in our weakness, peace that passes human understanding.

God not only walks with us through our suffering, He enters into it. And in our times of deepest anguish when we think we can't go on, He points us to a future in which the perfect world He created will be restored. Where tears and fears will be no more. Where all that's wrong will be made right. Where all that's broken will be made new. 

We need never fear that God has forsaken us. He would never leave us to deal with the heartaches of life on our own. It would go against the Father's nature to abandon His kids. So where is He in our suffering? Smack dab in the middle of it. 

Some friends of ours had their house broken into a few weeks ago. Among the items stolen were their flat-screen TV, their laptop, their DVD player, monitors, and video equipment. They experienced the typical feelings people experience when things like this happen--dismay, fear, sadness, anger, helplessness.

But the loss of their camera in the robbery evoked intensely deeper emotions.

On that camera were family photos. Pictures of their two-year-old's birthday party. The visual announcement that they were expecting a new baby. Photos of a grandfather who may not be with them much longer. Images that cannot be replaced. 

Stealing the camera made the perpetrators' violation infinitely more personal. It left our friends with a sick pain in the the pit of their stomachs; a shadowy uneasiness. Having their house broken into and their TV stolen made them feel defeated. Having their camera stolen made them feel defiled. It crossed a deeply personal boundary.

This scenario illustrates the difference between being abused and being sexually abused.

A past that includes verbal or physical abuse often evokes feelings of dismay, fear, sadness, anger, and helplessness. Such abuse is a clear violation. It is grossly unfair. Reprehensible. But, without minimizing the effects of verbal or physical abuse, experiencing sexual abuse is different.

Sexual abuse is personal. Those who have been abused sexually are left feeling desecrated, dishonored. Sexual abuse victims are robbed of treasures that cannot be replaced: value, dignity, innocence.

Perhaps the one thing that differentiates victims of sexual abuse from those who have been abused verbally or physically is a pervading, sometimes debilitating sense of shame. Sexual abuse should result in shame. But shame felt by the perpetrator. Yet all too often it is the victim who takes on shame. Shame that, sometimes decades after the abuse was inflicted, continues to break and enter their soul and steal their worth, security, and peace.

Victims of sexual abuse, particularly if the abuse occurred when they were children, often take on blame for what happened. They tell themselves that the abuse was their fault; that they somehow deserved it, or perhaps even invited it. And shame begins to cast its murky shadow over their lives.

​Shame is dirty. It leaves a mark on people. But it's a mark that is often not visible to others. It is a smudge on a person's soul. Those who bear it feel filthy. And for the victim it is often a grossly undeserved consequence of having been sexually abused.

But there is good news. Help is available.

It is critical for those who have experienced sexual abuse to find a good therapist who will help them identify and process feelings they may have repressed for years. It is also important that those who have been abused learn how to set healthy boundaries in their lives--to say yes to people who will help them and no to relationships that will harm them.

But the key to finding lasting freedom from the horrific effects of sexual abuse is to conquer shame.

It is not God's intent for His children to live lives of pain, misery, and regret--the inevitable result of living in the shadow of shame. So He has set out to restore us. To make us new. To take what is wrong and make it right. To fix what is broken and make it whole again. It's what He does.  

We silence the voice of  shame when we not only hear but believe God's words of truth about us:

• You are good.
• You are prized.
• I delight in you.
• You matter deeply.
• You have incredible worth.

The more attuned we are to His tender voice, the more we will experience the healing we long for. 

We learn from the Bible that God is our Refuge; that He is a High Tower, where we find safety. The psalmist David referred to God as my hiding place (Psalm 32:7, NIV) and a shield who saves the upright in heart (Psalm 7:10, NIV).

Yet, we must realize that even though God is our Protector, He never promises to shield His kids from all of life’s problems. 

The world can be a scary place. For many, even our homes aren't safe. We often find ourselves fearful; our peace and sense of security threatened by circumstances out of our control. Ever since sin entered the world people's lives have been marked by trouble and turmoil. Storylines that included imprisonment, debilitating illness, depression, drunkenness, abuse, marital unfaithfulness, and fatherlessness are not reserved for Days of Our Lives. The most beloved biblical characters had skeletons such as these in their prayer closets.

God does not always shield us from evil. He does not always protect us from pain. But our Heavenly Father always protects our identity as children made in His image. Our Heavenly Father's ever-present strength may not prevent bad things from happening to us, but it does prevent us from being defined by those things. We are His beloved children. And nothing can change that.

Problems in life provide God an opportunity to prove how much we need Him. It is in our deepest struggles that our relationship with Him is deepened. It is in going through the agony of adversity that our understanding of Him is developed. It is when our hearts hurt the most that they connect with His heart the best.

Safety is not found in the absence of danger; it is found in the presence of God. Our Heavenly Father is always by our side and at this very moment is offering to give us the security, the strength, the power, the peace that we need. He wants nothing more than to turn our heartache into hope, our frustration into fearlessness, our insecurity into invincibility.