Why is this happening to me?

Let’s be real: sometimes life just knocks the wind out of you. You’re going along, doing your best, and then—bam—a diagnosis you never saw coming. Cancer. ALS. Some other illness that steals your breath and breaks your heart. And you’re left staring at the ceiling at 3 a.m. asking the only question that makes any sense:

“Why me? What did I do to deserve this?”

Here’s the truth: you didn’t do anything to deserve this.

Somewhere along the way, we picked up this terrible idea that when bad things happen, especially devastating things like disease or terminal illness, it must mean God is angry with us. That God is keeping score, tallying up our failures, and handing out suffering like a punishment we somehow earned.

But that is not who God is.

Life has hard parts. Disease, pain, suffering—they are part of being human. They are part of living in a world where bodies are fragile and time is finite. Illness doesn’t arrive because you failed some spiritual test or because you’re less worthy of love, grace, or healing than someone else. It arrives because sometimes… life is brutally hard.

And here’s the truth I hold on to with everything I have:
God does not punish us with sickness. God does not use disease as a weapon.

Instead, God is the one who climbs down into the pit with us when suffering takes hold. God sits beside the hospital bed, holds the hands that tremble, and gathers every tear we cry.

When you are at your weakest, God is not your adversary. God is your advocate.
Your companion. Your strength. Your breath when you can’t seem to take one more.

I don’t have answers for why this disease struck you and not someone else. I can’t explain why this part of life feels unbearably heavy. But I can tell you this:

You are not being punished.
You are not abandoned.
You are not alone.

You didn’t choose this path, but you don’t have to walk it alone. No matter what comes, you are more than your diagnosis. You are still whole, still worthy, still beloved. And God—far from punishing you—is your companion, walking every step beside you with grace, with strength, and with love.