Posted on October 3, 2026 by Rev. Nathan Grewe, tLMHC
Godly Living
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In the first two parts of The Season of “I Don’t Know,” Rev. Nathan Grewe, tLMHC, explored the challenge of living with unanswered questions and the tendency to search for certainty. In Part 3, he reflects on what happens when an unanswered question begins to take up too much space — and how we can continue to see the larger picture while we wait for answers.
Read Part 1: When The Answer Is “We Don’t Know Yet”
Read Part 2: The Search For Certainty
Over the past several weeks, I’ve noticed something changing. My symptoms haven’t disappeared, although they have changed. I’ve continued seeing doctors, trying treatments, keeping appointments, and waiting for more information. But somewhere along the way, I realized I was paying attention to something besides the headache itself. I began paying attention to what the headache was doing to the rest of my life.
It wasn’t simply occupying space in my day. It was beginning to occupy space in my thoughts, my conversations, my prayers, and even the way I imagined the future. I found myself measuring a day by how much my head hurt. Before making plans, I wondered how I might feel. When someone asked how I was doing, my mind instinctively went to my symptoms before it went anywhere else. Can I go to the Savannah Bananas game? Well, it depends on how I feel. Again, none of those responses were wrong. They were understandable. Pain has a way of demanding our attention because pain matters.
As I reflected on this, I realized there is a difference between having a problem and allowing that problem to become the narrator of your life.
One afternoon, a simple image came to mind. Imagine a coffee mug sitting in the middle of your dining room table. From across the room, it looks perfectly ordinary. It’s one object among many. There are chairs around the table, family pictures hanging on the walls, sunlight coming through the windows, perhaps the sounds of people talking in the next room. The mug is real. It deserves your attention. But it exists within a much larger picture.
Now imagine picking up that same mug and holding it two inches from your face. The mug didn’t become larger. Your world became smaller. The chairs didn’t disappear. The family pictures were still hanging on the wall. The sunlight was still pouring through the window. Everything that mattered was still there, but your field of vision had narrowed so much that the mug became almost all you could see.
I began to wonder if unanswered questions often work the same way.
The question itself may not have changed. My symptoms had not suddenly become dramatically worse. Yet little by little, the unanswered question had moved closer and closer until it occupied nearly every corner of my attention. I wasn’t just living with uncertainty anymore. In many ways, I was living inside it.
Perhaps you’ve experienced something similar.
Maybe your unanswered question has nothing to do with your health. Maybe it’s a marriage that seems to be drifting apart. Maybe it’s a child you desperately want to help but cannot seem to reach. Perhaps it’s grief that still catches you off guard months or years later. Maybe it’s anxiety that arrived without invitation, a career that suddenly feels uncertain, or a prayer that seems to echo back in silence.
The details are different, but the process is surprisingly familiar.
One unanswered question slowly begins renting rooms in places it was never invited. It settles into our conversations. It shapes our plans. It colors our expectations. Eventually, without ever making a formal announcement, it starts telling us what today means and what tomorrow will probably look like.
That is one of the quiet dangers of suffering. It doesn’t always make our problems bigger. Sometimes it simply makes our world smaller.
One of the unexpected gifts during this season has been journaling. At first, I kept a journal because I wanted answers. I wanted to track symptoms, identify patterns, and gather information that might help my physicians understand what was happening. That was certainly useful. But over time, the journal became something more than a medical record. It became a place where I could simply notice.
I noticed that some days were better than others. I noticed that certain treatments seemed to help a little while others did not. I noticed that I laughed with my family one evening. I noticed that I became absorbed in a good conversation and forgot about my headache for a while. I noticed that a quiet walk outside settled my mind, even if it didn’t eliminate my symptoms.
Those observations didn’t solve the mystery. They didn’t complete the puzzle. But they reminded me that my life was still unfolding.
In my previous article, I described uncertainty as a puzzle with a few missing pieces. I’ve continued thinking about that image. Imagine spending hours staring at the empty spaces where those last few pieces belong. You continue searching under the table, checking the box, looking behind the chair, convinced that if you just search a little longer, you’ll finally complete the picture.
There’s nothing wrong with looking for the missing pieces. The danger is forgetting to step back and see the picture that has already emerged. Life can become like that.
There are still answers I hope to receive. I still want to know what is causing these symptoms. I still hope for healing. I still keep appointments and ask questions and pursue appropriate medical care. None of that has changed.
What has begun to change is this: I’m learning that while I wait for the missing pieces, there is still a beautiful picture that deserves my attention. There are conversations worth having today. People worth loving today. Work worth doing today. Moments of laughter worth receiving today. Prayers worth praying today. Sunsets worth watching today. A Savannah Bananas game to attend (it was amazing, by the way!).
If I postpone all of those until every question is answered, I may discover that I’ve unintentionally allowed one unanswered question to eclipse all the gifts God continues to place before me.
Jesus never minimized suffering. He healed the sick, welcomed the weary, wept with grieving friends, and carried our sorrows all the way to the cross. Yet He also had a remarkable way of helping people see beyond the burden immediately in front of them. He continually invited them into the larger story of God’s redeeming work.
That larger story reaches its clearest expression at the cross. On Good Friday, suffering appeared to fill the entire horizon. Fear, grief, injustice, and death seemed to have written the ending. But Easter morning revealed that what looked like the whole story was only one chapter. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus accomplished what none of us could accomplish ourselves, securing forgiveness, defeating death, and giving us a hope that does not depend upon our circumstances or our ability to understand them. Because of Him, unanswered questions never have the final word.
The Apostle Paul writes, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day… For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16, 18, ESV).
Paul doesn’t deny suffering. He simply refuses to let suffering become the whole story. Perhaps that is the invitation for us as well. Not to ignore the coffee mug sitting on the table. Not to pretend the puzzle is complete. Not to stop asking good questions or seeking wise care.
But to gently place the mug back where it belongs, still real, still important, but no longer so close that it blocks our view of everything else God is doing. The unanswered question may remain for a season. But it does not have to become the whole story. And perhaps that is where hope quietly begins to grow.
Every unanswered question leaves us standing in the middle of the story, where the ending has not yet been revealed. The challenge is learning not merely how to wait, but how to live while we wait. That’s where we’ll begin next.
If you or someone you know would benefit from Christ-centered mental health counseling, refer to or contact us today.
Lutheran Family Service walks with those experiencing difficult times through mental health counseling, marriage counseling, crisis pregnancy counseling, and adoption services.
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