Why Does God Allow Struggle During our Teenage Years?

By: Emma Novak

If God really loved us, why would he allow us to suffer? My response to this question is

usually this: He doesn't want us to suffer. And even if God removed all of the pain and suffering

from our lives, we still wouldn't be content. Romans 5: 3-4 states, “We rejoice in our sufferings,

knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character

produces hope." I believe this means that suffering often helps us become stronger and can even

make us more hopeful.

God allows us to suffer based on the season of our lives. As babies, we suffer because

we cannot speak - we need other people to feed, change, and put us to sleep. As we grow into

teenagers, we have friendship troubles, schoolwork, and exams to prepare for. Finally, adults can

struggle with tasks like paying the bills or having jobs. Through all of our years on earth, we

tend to suffer more and more. But God knows how much suffering we can handle based on that

season of your life and prepares us in the right way to be ready for each season. Psalm 90:10

“The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil

and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.”

From experience, I have learned that struggling young has helped me become the strong

person I am today. Growing up in my early years of elementary school, I had a rough group of

friends. They would constantly intend to hurt one another's feelings. This was through my

entire elementary career - from kindergarten to fifth grade. As I grew older, it actually seemed to

become worse. God knew I could handle it, though. Near the end of my elementary career I

started distancing myself away from them more and more, learning at a young age how people

may not always be kind.. Now, I know how to respond to problems like that today. God knew

that I would need to struggle young to prepare myself for the future. Even though at the moment

the suffering did not seem right.

I have learned that the older you become the more that is expected from you. When you

are young you have very few responsibilities. As you grow older more is expected from you.

God knows based on our age how much pain and suffering we can handle. I have also realized

that the more God has allowed me to experience challenges, the easier it becomes later. Just like

in my story, if I hadn't suffered when I was young I wouldn't have been as strong and confident

as I am today. So the next time you’re going through a hard time, try not to complain about it.

Unite yourself to God. Pray to Him and ask for His grace. Instead of looking at suffering as a

bad thing, look at it as a place to grow and get stronger.

To conclude this essay, I hope you have come to an understanding about the reason God

allows so much suffering in our life: it’s really to make us stronger. He doesn’t want to see us

suffer but he knows it will help us. I want to leave you with one more Bible verse that truly

spoke to me, James 1:2-4 : “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face

trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance."