Why is peace so hard to find?

I'm not sure how to title this post, so let's just get started and see where this takes us.

In the past couple of months, I've found a lot of friends who are really struggling in life.  Not little struggles - but big struggles.  Facing big issues, finding little hope.  I'm an answer kind of girl - wish I had all of them.  I like to "fix" things - make them better for people.  I don't like to see people suffering.

I listen, sometimes I try to offer the best advice I know.  I try, all the time, to point them to the one who does have all the answers.  Yet, sometimes, the "Christianise" seems to fall so far short.  All the right answers don't seem like enough.  I know - I've been there.

I know someone who has suffered a horrible loss in her life in the past year or so.  I've watched her from a distance as she has handled something I just don't think I could face - the loss of a spouse.  What I find most "intriguing" - if you could call it that - is her peace. I honestly don't know how she does it.  Every time I read her posts on Facebook, I find myself crying.  I often find myself thinking of her, praying for her, at odd moments of the day.  I'm so impressed by how she has walked what I know has been a difficult road.  Her pain is so clear - but her peace shouts above the pain.

I don't understand God sometimes.  Right now, I can think of 4 specific people who need a touch from God.  Not a small touch but a blow me over, fall on my face, overwhelming kind of touch. I know most of them have been crying out to God, asking for that touch - yet God - seems silent.

I have questions for God when I get to heaven.  Things I don't understand.  Why do people have to suffer?  Why do children get hurt?  Why do people get cancer?  I know all the "answers" of course - the sinful nature, the fall of man, Jesus suffered - I know.  But that offers so little hope - so little peace - to people who don't really know Him or who have forgotten what the touch of the Master feels like.

I struggle with this.  Struggle with the pain of others - struggle with my own pain.  There are times I feel the weight of this world resting quite heavily on my shoulders.  Times I forget what it means to truly be happy.  I'll be honest in that - it's an off and on struggle in my life - to find joy despite circumstances.

My friend I spoke of above - she seems to be finding those moments.  Those moments that despite her pain, she sees the smile of God.  Those moments where the peace that truly does pass all understanding finds her.  She's an example to me even though she doesn't know I'm watching.  I want to find that faith somehow - not just for me - but for those who come to me and cry on my shoulder.  I want to send them directly to the man who, although I don't understand His ways - I know He hears their cries.  I know He has all the answers if only they would bend their knee to Him.  But that doesn't mean there are easy answers either.  Just because we trust in Him doesn't mean people won't die, children won't suffer, pain won't be in our lives - but I want them to find the peace I see in my friend despite their circumstances.  And - to be honest - I want to find it too - in the small moments in my life when I find myself overwhelmed.

So - I guess this was a little bit of a depressing post.  Pray for those people I am speaking of in this post.  They need the peace a touch from God.