I'm so sorry to hear how your mother suffered. I wish I could offer you some first-hand wisdom/experience to help you understand why God allows people to suffer, but the truth is that I have been asking God, and myself, exactly the same questions you posed: Is God involved in our lives, and will He perform a miracle to answer our prayers?
All my background and studying of His Word tell me that He IS involved, and that He encourages us to ask, seek, knock, and He will hear. But my own experience has not proven that.
When my 13-year-old son was critically injured in a car accident, I prayed like I had never prayed before, and yet he died. Not too long after that, my husband and I ended up getting a divorce. I lost the house my children had grown up in, and even with working 2 jobs I can barely afford the home we have now. I have prayed and believed with all my heart that God is going to do a miracle, and turn around this down-ward spiral I feel that my family is in.
I am still hoping, still praying, still believing. What else can I do?
I do agree that God comforts and strengthens us THROUGH our trials, but His ways are not our ways, and we won't know the full impact of His allowing certain things in our lives or intervening through prayer, until we see Him face to face.
He is sovereign, He loves us enough to die for us, and He wants us to trust in Him, to seek His face and not only His hand.
I pray that God will bless you, comfort you, strengthen and guide you.
