Retirement’s Final Challenge: Finish Well by Drawing Closer to God Even in SicknessSample

3. How You Suffer Might Be the Most Powerful Thing You Ever Do

In retirement, people tend to pay closer attention to your life — your values, your choices, and especially how you respond to hardship. You’ve spent years influencing your children, colleagues, neighbors, and church community. Now, in this slower season, your quiet resilience through sickness might be the loudest sermon you’ve ever preached.

Whether we like it or not, people watch how we suffer. Coworkers notice your attitude. Family sees your tone. Friends pay attention to what you say — or don’t say. And while you may not feel strong or wise during a time of illness, your response is quietly shaping how others see God.

Paul understood this deeply. Writing from prison, he told the Philippians:

“Now I want you to know… that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.” — Philippians 1:12 NIV

In other words, Paul’s hardship didn’t push people away from faith — it drew them toward it. His chains became his platform:

“Because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel.” — Philippians 1:14 NIV

This is the third way sickness can draw people closer to God: it speaks through your witness.

Your peace, perseverance, and steady trust in God during this time may speak louder than anything you said in your working years. When people see faith holding firm under pressure, they begin to wonder if maybe God really is enough — even for them.

The apostle Peter put it this way:

“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” — 1 Peter 3:15 NIV

Hope that shines through hardship is often what stirs the deepest curiosity in others. Your endurance may be someone else's evidence.

A Crazy Faith

During the year or so that it took my illness to unfold and be diagnosed, I continued with my usual activities. Somewhere along the way, after a Zoom call with some fellow volunteers, I must have said something that struck a chord — because someone suddenly blurted out that I had a “Crazy Faith.” A faith so strong, so real, and so effective that she wanted it too.

Huh? Was I so special? Had I done something profound?

Honestly, I didn’t think I had. But something about how I was walking through uncertainty — with peace, with trust — touched her exactly where God wanted to reach her. And He used that moment of sickness in my life to draw someone else toward Him.

Take Time to Reflect

You don’t need to fake a smile or pretend everything’s fine. That’s not what makes your faith compelling.

What moves people is when they see peace where there could be panic… gratitude where there might be grumbling… and hope that defies human logic.

Paul wrote:

“Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.” — 2 Corinthians 4:16, 18 NIV

This kind of vision — this kind of inner renewal — is what others notice.

Ask yourself:

• What are people seeing in me during this season of illness?
• Am I letting the Holy Spirit shape my words, actions, and attitude?
• Could my quiet trust become someone else’s turning point?

Your story is still being written.

You might be lying in a hospital bed, but your faith can stand tall — pointing others toward the God who sustains you.