Amy Loflin [introduction]: When we are in that midst of suffering and we start to question, like, “okay, God, where are You in this?” And, “if I were God, it would look a lot different.” Or, “why haven’t You changed this? Why hasn’t this felt lighter yet?” 

It’s so human, so normal to ask all of those questions. And that’s part of our being real with God, and He wants those. But I think it’s also our opportunity to fill that gap with faith that His ways are always going to be greater than our ways. We can still move forward through our suffering.

Ellen Krause: Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. I’m Ellen, your host, and today we’re talking about what it looks like to walk with God in seasons that feel difficult, confusing, or heavy, when faith feels harder than usual, and we’re learning how to trust Him in the middle of it.

Joining me is Amy Loflin, an author, coach, and speaker known for helping women move from striving and self-doubt into deeper connection and freedom in Christ. With a background in counseling and over a decade of church leadership, Amy brings both warmth and biblical wisdom to women navigating real-life struggles.

Amy, welcome to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast!

Amy Loflin: Thank you so much. It’s such a joy to be here.

Ellen Krause: Yes, I’m so glad that you’re here today. Why don’t we just start out with you telling our listeners just a little bit about yourself and your ministry?

Amy Loflin: I live in North Carolina with my husband, Chad. We’ve been married for 29 years, and like you mentioned, I was in the counseling field for several years. I had several years in my life where I was able to be a stay-at-home mom, and then about a decade on staff with my church.

A little over four years ago now, I stepped off of staff to create a new ministry and organization with some friends of mine called Echo Joy Collective. We create resources and opportunities for women to just be intentional and make space for God in their everyday lives.

Ellen Krause: I love that. And it’s certainly right on point where we are in the same mission and goal here at Coffee and Bible Time.

Well, Amy, you write about suffering and the way it affects our view of God. What lies about God do women tend to believe when they’re hurting?

Amy Loflin: Yes, we’re just going to dive right in, aren’t we?

Ellen Krause: Yes, we are.

Amy Loflin: I love it.

Yes, first of all, I’m no stranger to suffering. A little bit of my story: When I was 21 years old, I was a senior in college, and my mom died of a sudden heart attack. She was 52 and otherwise very healthy. We had no idea that she even had any kind of heart issues, so that was traumatic and just really the decades of tidal waves of grief.

It’s such a blessing to be on the healing side of that, but the experience has really impacted and shaped my faith as well.

So, when we think about suffering and pain, and we’re really in the depths of those valleys, it really impacts the way we see the world. I mean, it’s almost as if we are wearing a pair of glasses and the lenses are just simply smeared with suffering.

And so I really think when we’re in those seasons of suffering, we end up believing three different types of lies about God and about His character, in some type of form or mix of those three.

And one of them is that, okay, He must be incompetent. He’s an incompetent God. He dropped a ball somewhere. He fell asleep at the wheel. We start to tell ourselves, if I were God, this wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have dropped the ball. I would have prevented this. I would have made sure he didn’t leave. I would have made sure she didn’t pass away. I would have prevented that accident. I would have stopped that diagnosis. I would have had a positive pregnancy test, whatever that suffering looked like.

And so we start to see God as incompetent.

Another lie is that we also see Him as absent. So maybe He’s a creator God, but He’s not very active in my life because otherwise surely He would have done something. Surely He would have fixed or prevented or softened this suffering by now. And so maybe He’s just absent. Maybe He’s just kind of sitting back and eating popcorn and watching His world and creation flounder around.

So I think that’s a second lie.

And then a third one: pain and suffering, again, when we’re seeing Him through that lens, we start to see Him as cruel. So He’s either incompetent, absent, or cruel. Maybe He is that angry God that we struggle to understand, that we see in the Old Testament. Or maybe this pain, this suffering that I’m experiencing, He did on purpose. Is He punishing me? Did I do something wrong?

When we are going through that suffering and we see Him through the lens of that, it really begins to distort His nature and character, and we get confused and we believe those lies about Him and think of Him as something in one of those three categories of either incompetent, cruel, or absent.

Ellen Krause: You know, I experienced that in recent years with a dear friend of mine who had a very difficult, very painful journey through an illness that lasted years. And it was just chronic, terrible pain.

And as a believer, it’s just like, God, where are You? You know, we just can’t understand.

In God’s perfect timing, she was able to be treated in such a way that she doesn’t have that anymore. But I can tell you, even for strong believers, it’s like, what’s going on here? We start to question and doubt.

How about for you, Amy? What’s something you learned about God through that suffering with your mother’s death that you don’t think you might have learned any other way?

Amy Loflin: I think that when I can look back and I do see those seasons of the confusion and even those thoughts of, you know, if I were God, she would still be here. I was completely unmoored when she died, I think because we had such a great bond. It was very tough.

But I realized at some point along the way that she was probably neck and neck with Jesus in my life. She was an idol. I didn’t realize that at the time, but I can say that now. So when she died, that pedestal crumbled.

And so it took some time to realize, okay, I need to fix my eyes on Jesus. He is the only one that will not change, that will not leave me.

There were several reasons that Jesus came, and one of the primary reasons was to reveal the heart and nature of the Father. And so, when we are confused, that is where we need to turn, is to look at His nature and character that’s revealed to us through countless stories throughout Scripture.

And that is where we find—and that’s where, personally, I was able to finally find my footing—and to recognize and realize that we have a God who is all-knowing, all-loving, all-good, all the time, and that He is the only one that sees how all the pieces fit together for the good of those who love Him. Romans 8:28, right?

And it’s there, Ellen, that I had this shocking realization, and it was a breakthrough and a turning point, that if I really were God, that would mean that I would be all-knowing, all-loving, all-good, all the time; that I would be able to see how all the pieces fit together for the good of those who love Him, even generationally speaking.

And that would mean today would look exactly as it does right now.

And when that realization first occurred to me, it was a little bit of a hard pill to swallow, right? Because I had to really go through some things in my mind.

Wait, wait, wait. Does that mean that my mom still would have died? Does that mean 9/11 would have still happened? Does that mean that your friend still would have received her diagnosis? Does that mean this marriage would have still fallen apart? This person would still be struggling with infertility? The coronavirus?

You start to really understand and recognize that, yes, all of those things would still have happened even if I were God.

Ellen Krause: Yeah, you know, Amy, it’s interesting that you and I shared a slightly similar story in that my father passed away very unexpectedly at the age of 58. And he and I were very, very close. I just loved him.

And I realized later on also that God showed me—it’s a blessing, but something you have to be careful of—is I was blessed to have a dad who loved me so much. But at the same time, I realized I was putting him as an idol.

I was going to him whenever I had a problem. Help me. What do I do now? Help me through this.

And so I can really appreciate the pain that you went through during that time.

Amy Loflin: And what a gift that we were blessed with such incredible parents. But it is also a gift to be able to recognize the order and how easy it is to get things a little bit out of order.

But recognizing that Jesus has—He’s always, always, always—has to be first.

Ellen Krause: Yes. Absolutely, absolutely.

Well, let’s talk about a woman in the Bible who encountered God during her suffering.

So you write about the story of the bleeding woman, which is in three out of the four Gospels. Walk us through this and tell us why it speaks so powerfully even to us today.

Amy Loflin: Okay, so the story of the bleeding woman is found in, like you said, three of the Gospels, and my writing and time with her was really focused on the account found in Luke, in Luke chapter 8.

If you’re unfamiliar with the story, I encourage you to dig in. But it’s the scene where Jesus has come to town, and several times throughout the story, it’s mentioning the crowds that have gathered around Him and want to see Him.

And a leader from the local synagogue, Jairus, falls to his knees in front of Jesus and is begging Him to come to his home to heal his daughter, who is 12 years old and is close to death.

And so there’s this processional of people following Jesus and Jairus to his home.

And there is a woman who has been inflicted with this condition, a medical condition of bleeding, for 12 years. She slips among the crowd and reaches out and touches the cloak of Jesus. And we are told that she is immediately healed.

And Jesus stops, and He turns around, and the whole processional, the crowd, stops with Him, and He asks, “Who touched me?”

You can imagine there’s just kind of this awkward silence for a minute there.

And finally Peter speaks up. “Well, Lord, many people are touching You. There’s a large crowd here.”

And Jesus says, “No, someone deliberately touched Me because I felt healing power go out of Me.”

And then a beautiful line, Luke 8:47, is, “When she knew she could no longer stay hidden, she began to tremble and fell to her knees in front of Him.”

And that’s when she began to tell her story and tell everyone that she had experienced healing.

And then Jesus says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”

And then He turns, and the processional goes on to Jairus’ home.

But we see this beautiful woman, this beautiful, courageous woman. And I spent a long time in this story, immersing myself with her.

Again, fixing my eyes on Jesus. This is one of my favorite ways to do that, is to engross myself in just one story, just a few verses of one person having an encounter with Him. And this is one of my favorites.

There’s so many elements that we can draw from this story, but I think that the reason it is so relevant today is that we can identify with her.

When I write about her, I’ve broken her story kind of into three parts: who she was before she encountered Him, who she was when she did, and then what we can imagine her life was like after this encounter and her healing.

What we know about that culture is that because she had this disorder, this medical anomaly, she was considered unclean, which, you know, in our culture, Ellen, we don’t really understand what that means.

We can still go to church. She was condemned. She was treated like a contagion. She was very much alone. And just the shame that she carried, the mistrust that she must have carried, because we’re also told that she sought healing from doctors that only made it worse.

So I can only imagine what that type of experience must have been like for her, that kind of trauma.

It’s hard to even imagine that she would trust this man. But I can imagine that she heard parts of the crowd saying, “We heard He’s a healer. We heard that He eats with sinners. We heard that He allows women to follow Him. We heard maybe He’s the Messiah.”

And she just gets drawn in.

She doesn’t care that she’s suddenly in the crowd, a crowd that may begin to yell at her or turn on her. And she reaches out and experiences that healing with just this itty-bitty, simple, butterfly-type of touch.

So many women can identify with her suffering in some form or fashion. The sparks of hope that maybe she was even afraid to allow to stir in her in this moment.

And yet something—Someone—drew her in anyway.

It’s beautiful.

Ellen Krause: Yes, absolutely. It is. It is.

And I think it was in the Mark version where it talked about how she spent all of her money trying to get this healing. She was truly at the end of her suffering life.

Well, we know that she wanted physical healing. But what do you think she was truly longing for when she reached for Jesus?

Amy Loflin: What a delightful, fun question to consider.

And that’s what I think we can only answer when we dig a little bit deeper, because we could read through that story really quickly and assume she was just reaching because she wanted the bleeding to stop.

But when we sit and linger and we immerse ourselves with her in the story and imagine ourselves in her shoes, I think that she was longing for a new creation, a new way of life. I think she was longing for connection with other people. I think she was longing for Him.

And that’s what helped push her through any kind of fear of being shunned or isolated.

Ellen Krause: Right?

And we just see the complete opposite of her being unclean and touching Jesus and becoming clean. And I think what I’ve learned over and over again is that God always exceeds my expectations.

And whether she realized it or not at the time, not only was He granting her this physical healing that would allow her to come back into community, but it was also her saving grace.

Amy Loflin: Right. Absolutely, it is.

It’s so beautiful to see that image because, you know, from Levitical law, because she touched Him, she would have contaminated Him. He would have been unclean and would have had to go into this cleansing ceremony that evening.

And yet it shows the power of Jesus. His power flowed out of Him. Her contagion didn’t flow to Him.

So that just shows the power of His presence and the possibility of being around Him. It’s just amazing to think through and to imagine that experience.

Ellen Krause: Yeah.

So as we kind of dig into this a little bit deeper, this story then is helping differentiate sort of a surface-level faith and a deeper connection with God.

How does suffering move us from just knowing about God to truly depending on Him personally? Because I think for a lot of people—and this is where I was before I became truly saved—I knew a lot about God, but it hadn’t yet transferred from my head to my heart.

Amy Loflin: Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. I think we can all relate to that. I know I can.

One of the things that is so profound about this story is when Peter looks at Jesus. Jesus had stopped and asked who touched Him. There is that confusion. And Peter says, “Well, many people in the crowd are pressing in on You.”

And that’s when we recognize that there are many people that touched Him, but only one was changed. Only one was transformed.

And so we have to ask why.

And are we living in close proximity to Jesus, or are we reaching out with deliberate faith and a deliberate touch?

And I think that’s what set her apart from everyone else that was really just there to kind of see what might happen. Maybe they were curious. Maybe they just didn’t want to miss out. They’ve been hearing about this Jesus. They were really there just to check out this man they were curious about.

But because of her suffering, it ended up being her gift.

She did not end up just being one person in the crowd who was there for a show. She was there for transformation. She was there for true healing.

And again, she wouldn’t have been otherwise if it wasn’t for her suffering.

Ellen Krause: Exactly. And that really showed the depth of the faith that she had.

Amy Loflin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ellen Krause: Well, for the listener who is maybe going through some kind of suffering of their own right now, what are some practical first steps that she can take toward meeting with God, even in the middle of whatever they are going through?

Amy Loflin: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

I love the word steps because I think sometimes, especially—and you know this too—when we’re really raw, when we are really in the deepest pieces of our valley, we have to be practical with our steps and be incredibly kind to ourselves and recognize that sometimes that just means brushing our teeth in the morning, washing our face.

Okay, now I’m going to take a shower.

Whatever that looks like.

So being kind when we’re in the midst of that valley.

But when I think about the steps, I see it as: be kind to yourself, be honest with God. Be kind to yourself, be honest with God.

Almost like that’s how you move forward, one step at a time.

It’s giving yourself grace no matter what you may be feeling. And then, trust Him enough that you can take some hard questions into His presence.

He already knows your anger. You’re not going to offend Him with your desperation, with your disappointment, with your lamenting.

So going into His presence and asking yourself, is there something in me that is making me hesitate to reach out to God? Am I seeing Him as either absent, incompetent, or cruel?

Sometimes we don’t know what to say because we’re experiencing a level of suffering that we are unfamiliar with, and we don’t even know how to explain it.

One of my favorite things, even on the mountaintops, is to step into prayer with the breath prayer of “deep calls to deep” and to inhale the words deep calls and exhale to deep.

And I love the Psalm where David shares that. I see that as that image, that practice of God calling us into that deeper connection with Him.

And sometimes that’s just listening. It’s just sitting and having the faith to know He’s going to meet you there.

Ellen Krause: Yes, yes, I completely relate.

Within the last year, I’ve had kind of just a difficult experience, and it really encouraged me, the psalmist who just told God the way it was.

Like you said, He already knows.

Lamenting about why would we be in this situation, God? Why would You allow this to happen? And all these things.

But yet, always coming back at the end to say, God, I will trust You. You’ve proven Your faithfulness over and over again. And I believe You are who You say You are. I know You hear my prayer. And help me to trust You each step of the way, as you said.

Because sometimes looking at suffering in such a big picture is too much.

Amy Loflin: Yeah. It can feel overwhelming.

And that’s that space of being kind to yourself, giving yourself grace, recognizing what you can do.

You know, maybe the day-to-day that used to feel normal and easy doesn’t feel normal and easy anymore. But breaking it into those small little bites and pieces and being kind and being honest with God.

And yes, trusting Him. He’s going to meet you there.

Ellen Krause: Absolutely.

Well, Amy, tell us a little bit about your book, Story Worth Living, and how it will really help women understand what God is doing in these seasons of pain.

Amy Loflin: Yes.

So Story Worth Living is based on the story of the bleeding woman. It really came out of my own personal journaling experience through immersing myself into her story and really becoming a bystander, but then also trying to understand her.

And so, yes, part of it certainly helps women to unpack some of their misconceptions about God in seasons of suffering, but even just through life in general.

And then it also helps us all to recognize that we have a wonderful story worth living.

That then, just like this beautiful woman who used to rather stay in the shadows and stay hidden, is now using that as a story to proclaim the goodness of God.

And so it’s a resource. It’s a tool to help us see and cultivate our own story worth living for our own healing and our own freedom and our own good, but ultimately for the glory of God.

Because it’s not meant just for us. Every story is meant to be shared.

Ellen Krause: Well, Amy, truly your writing exemplifies how this came from your heart and wasn’t a contrived piece of work that you were just trying to put together.

It’s an incredible resource, and I know it will encourage any woman and give them the confidence that their story is worth living.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your book?

Amy Loflin: Thank you.

So our book is on our website. It is EchoJoyCollective.com, so you can learn more about it there. But it’s also available wherever books are sold, and you can certainly follow me on social media and my personal accounts. We’re also on Echo Joy Collective as well.

Ellen Krause: Well, we will make sure we include all those in our show note links.

Before I let you go, Amy, I have to ask you some of our favorite questions here. What is your go-to Bible, and what translation is it?

Amy Loflin: My go-to Bible is the One Step Closer Bible. It is my favorite, and it is the New Living Translation Bible. Love it.

Ellen Krause: Excellent.

Okay. Do you have any favorite Bible journaling supplies that you like to use? Because you mentioned you were journaling when you wrote this, so…

Amy Loflin: I do.

I will say, and I go through ebb and flow with some seasons, but I am a huge proponent of journaling. There’s so much healing that awaits. There are so many revelations and things that God has shared with me through the process of journaling that would not have happened if I did not put pen to paper.

So yes, I’m an avid journaler.

I love journals that are larger, that are hardback spiral. I’ve got these. I know I’m a little bit quirky, but I love this one too because, here’s this morning’s entry, I love that it has the dark lines, so it’s easy to write in it.

And the other thing—I love mechanical pencils that are nice and dark.

Those are… it’s very simple, but I have learned through the years there’s just certain little characteristics of my journals that just make it all the more joyful to sit down and pour my heart out.

Ellen Krause: Absolutely.

All right. Last question for you: What is your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?

Amy Loflin: I love to bounce around, to be honest, but a go-to is the YouVersion Bible app. Blue Letter, of course, is wonderful too. And just even, you know, my Apple Music, just listening to worship songs, things like that.

Ellen Krause: Well, thank you for sharing those.

And Amy, just thank you so much for sharing your honest and thoughtful insights, your experience. I know this conversation is going to resonate deeply with so many women who are walking through difficult seasons right now. So thank you for doing that.

Amy Loflin: It’s my pleasure. Thank you so much.

Ellen Krause: You are most welcome.

And thank you, friends, for being here for today’s episode. I hope that it encouraged you, and we hope that you will subscribe so you can stay with us each week.

We are here every Thursday with a new conversation.

Thanks for joining us at the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.

Have a blessed day.