Pain rips your body. Narcotics stupefy, but relieve no pain. Sleep comes only from exhaustion and the most powerful sleeping pills. You pray for relief. But you get no relief. You aren't really living any more. You pray to die. But you can't even die. Or perhaps you watch the suffering of someone you love. Trouble can wear any of a thousand grim faces. The Bible tells you that God cares when we suffer, but does He? After having prayed and concluded that God is not helping, you may become disappointed in Him, lose faith, become angry at Him, or conclude that He does not even exist.

The Scriptures tell us that in ages gone by, God was active in human affairs. But is He now? The author, a retired professional hospital chaplain who has ministered to thousands during times of trouble, reexamines his faith during his wife's eleven years of suffering amid declining health. Often feeling abandoned by God, the author describes his and his wife's slowly emerging conclusions that God is not silent, nor is He as inactive as He sometimes seems to be. Perhaps He has simply changed many of His ways of getting things done.