Any daily newspaper recounts tragic story after story of premature deaths, fractured relationships, and broken dreams. Indeed, we need not turn to any newspaper for an accounting of the world's troubles and sorrows. We have only to look at our own friends and neighbors and families. We have only to look into our own lives and hearts. Jesus, the healer and power-giver, never insulted people by telling them their problems weren't real. He never told the sick they were never really sick or that their illness had no pain or reality. He never told people that death wasn't real, nor did he offer this widowed mother Pollyannaish pabulum to soothe her grieving heart.

An Indiana man had a young son with a special fear of storms. One day, when a storm threatened, the father took his son to the front of their lovely, substantial home, pointed out across the neighborhood, and said to the boy, "There, you see everything is okay. These are solid homes and we are safe and dry in them." About that time a tornado touched down a block away and utterly destroyed several of these "substantial" homes.

The storms of the natural world are real, just as are the storms of the spiritual, psychological world. Trouble and tragedy are real. Evil and death are real. Jesus never said to his disciples on the stormy Sea of Galilee, "This is no storm. The storm is in your mind." He never said that. Instead he said to the storm, "Peace, be still." And it was. Are you out of a job? Did your home decline in value? Are your financial resources dwindling? Do you have a serious illness? Is your marriage not right? Is there a real problem with the children? Are you enslaved in a debilitating habit? Then don't deny it, says Jesus. The widow never said her son wasn't dead. Admit the problems. Don't deny them.