Aug 23, 2026 · 37 min · 9 segments
Have you ever prayed the same question over and over, hoping that if you asked enough times, God would finally explain himself? Why this. Why now. Why me. In week two of Honest to God, Toni Nieuwhof…
Toni NieuwhofGuest
Sydney JacksonHost
Have you ever tried to just grab the steering wheel of your life from God? When my older son was five years old, I walked into his room.
He was playing with some friends, and he was standing on top of his toy chest waving this plastic sword in the air.
And at that point, I was a clinical pharmacist working in the hospital, and I knew that something was off with his blood counts.
And so we, an hour later, found ourselves in the pediatric unit of the local hospital He was confined to bed, orders not to get out of bed.
He couldn't even brush his teeth, because the little bristle could cause a nick, and the nick could start a bleed, because as it turns out, his platelet count, you know, and the platelets are the part of your bloodstream that causes clotting, his platelet count wasn't only low, it was zero.
And so at that point, my prayer life intensified, yes, but it turned to prayers like, God, you have to heal him.
And I was feeling hurt, honestly, because this was the boy who wasn't supposed to have been conceived.
He was the one who was born prematurely, and so he spent 12 days in the neonatal intensive care unit.
He had such a bad cough, and they couldn't really diagnose it, and it didn't really get treated, and that went on for about a year.
And then finally, he was in a season of his life where he was apparently well, and then this.
Like, why? Why this suffering? Why now? Why in the midst of our very full life, you know, is he all of a sudden so sick again? And so my response was just to pray these controlling prayers.
Have you ever tried to just grab the steering wheel of your life from God? When my older son was five years old, I walked into his room.
He was playing with some friends, and he was standing on top of his toy chest waving this plastic sword in the air.
And at that point, I was a clinical pharmacist working in the hospital, and I knew that something was off with his blood counts.
And so we, an hour later, found ourselves in the pediatric unit of the local hospital He was confined to bed, orders not to get out of bed.
He couldn't even brush his teeth, because the little bristle could cause a nick, and the nick could start a bleed, because as it turns out, his platelet count, you know, and the platelets are the part of your bloodstream that causes clotting, his platelet count wasn't only low, it was zero.
And so at that point, my prayer life intensified, yes, but it turned to prayers like, God, you have to heal him.
And I was feeling hurt, honestly, because this was the boy who wasn't supposed to have been conceived.
He was the one who was born prematurely, and so he spent 12 days in the neonatal intensive care unit.
He had such a bad cough, and they couldn't really diagnose it, and it didn't really get treated, and that went on for about a year.
And then finally, he was in a season of his life where he was apparently well, and then this.
Like, why? Why this suffering? Why now? Why in the midst of our very full life, you know, is he all of a sudden so sick again? And so my response was just to pray these controlling prayers.
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