By Pieter Vermeulen, ICC Board Member, as part of a series, “Persecuted but not Forsaken.” If the blood of the martyrs still speaks, are we listening? For many believers, the question of suffering becomes most difficult when it touches the lives of the righteous. It is one thing to understand suffering as the consequence of human sin in a fallen world. It is another thing entirely to face the reality that those who love God deeply may suffer intensely. This question echoes throughout Scripture and across the centuries of church history.