Do I get sick because God punishes me?

When illness strikes, especially if it is hard, the question leaps out: "Why me, if I haven't done anything wrong?" And behind it lurks a fear: that it is a punishment, the sign that God loves you less. It is not. Pain entered the world because the world is broken, not because God keeps an account of your faults and sends you an invoice. If proof were needed, there is Christ: he suffered while innocent. He who had not sinned carried the pain. That makes it clear that falling ill does not measure your guilt or God's affection. He does not send sickness as revenge; he enters into it to accompany you. That does not remove the "why", but it changes the place from which you live it. Instead of reading it as a condemnation, you can live it as a place where you are not alone. Less "God holds a grudge against me" and more "God is right here with me, in this too."