How to look at suffering

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Monica4316

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I’ll admit that the suffering that I go through doesn’t even compare with what many people around the world have to endure… and it doesn’t compare with the Saints and Martyrs either. I guess it doesn’t even count.

But sometimes when I look at my life I wonder why things happened the way they did… I know that everyone has a cross to carry. But when I talk to my friends or people I know, few of them seem to have the same types of problems that I do. I’m not saying that they don’t suffer - their suffering is just different and doubtless also difficult… and I’m glad that they don’t have to go through these same things… but I wonder why my life has been the way it is. Did God plan it this way? is it by chance? is it my own path to holiness?

What can be the benefit of suffering? I believe we can offer it for souls in Purgatory and sinners… we can also offer it as a form of reparation to God… we can also have greater sympathy for others who suffer and use the opportunity to help them

but I have a hard time believing sometimes that my suffering can do that. It seems too small to help a soul in Purgatory, but too big for me to handle. lol! :confused: when I offer up something I wonder if God really accepted it…

I can say one way that suffering has helped me… it helped to turn to God. When I was a kid I was very lonely. I never talked to anyone about what was going on. Then I read that God loves me as His child, and this really affected me emotionally, I used to cry thinking about it. I turned to God and He used everything I was going through to reach down to me. Im so grateful for that. I just wish I was more faithful to Him… 😦 now when I wrote this paragraph, I thought of my sins, and how if I only treasured God’s love more I wouldn’t sin so much and I’d be more afraid to lose Him. I wish I hadn’t ever sinned.

I just don’t understand… does God plan the particular trials we go through? Does He put us in all these situations? I know He put me in my family… I love my family and at the same time the whole story of my family is like a tragedy. When I talk to my friends, they seem to come from such different homes. (I don’t mention my family situation to them). Im glad that they come from happy homes… but I wish that I did too. In a way though it helped me to turn to God. Also I still carry around the effects of things that happened to me as a child, and I go through spiritual trials that are very intense for me but maybe they wouldn’t be for another person… maybe I’m just weaker than many? But…are these the crosses that God wants me to carry? why is every day so difficult? But Im thankful to God, He makes me so happy 🙂

sorry for all this rambling. Im just wondering what you think about suffering, and do you think it’s planned by God for our salvation? why do some suffer more than others (thinking of the orphans in Africa), is it just chance?

thank you
 
Suffering is a part of everyone’s lives. How lucky we are that we who are faithful can turn to God in our time of intense suffering and feel his love and compassion for us. Life is full of peaks and valleys and we may be doing great in one aspect of our lives say for example, things may be going great at work and may be going terribly at home. I know that people we love affect our lives and when they suffer, we suffer. I can truly say as a 54 year old woman that God has NEVER let me down. In times of suffering, I pray continually that He will lead me through this time to better times. I have been through some terrible times and have always come out for the better. TRUST in God. He is the one that carries us through the difficult times and as any great friend, He wants us to rely totally on Him for conversation, trust and help. God Bless.
 
Suffering entered the world as a result of original sin. Suffering was not part of GOD’s design for man, but we brought it upon ourselves when our first parents chose to disobey GOD.
The choices a people or a person or a president or a senate or a nation or a continent etc etc make have consequences which can and many times do lead to suffering. Can GOD intervene and stop it all, Yes but to do so would remove our free will. Adam and Eve could have chosen not to sin, but if GOD “forced them” not to sin, he would have made them robots and slaves not souls who know HIM and love HIM.
If you chose to marry the wrong person, your life is in chaos. If you chose NOT to work on a marriage and help make it successful, then you are chosing chaos. If you chose to scream and shout in front of the children, then you are chosing to damage them, along with your spouse.
Monica, I am not sure how old you are, but I would suggest that you tell you parents the damage they are doing to your soul through this constant arguing - and if not them, then a priest at confession and ask for his advise. I heard a priest one time connect the 5th Commandment “Thou shall not kill” to the include killing the spirit and soul of children through abuse, and personal attacks and lack of love shown to the children.
 
WHAT are afflictions, if patiently endured, but the raw material out of which we can weave the royal robe that we shall deserve to wear at the banquet of the great King?

It there was no suffering Christ could not have suffered and died on the cross and we could not have been redeemed.
 
I hope this doesn’t seem silly to you.

In a certain way, from a temporal perspective, the suffering encountered in any one life is circumstancial, impersonal, happenstance. In another, from a spiritual perspective, the suffering encountered is custom fit precisely to order for the particular life that encounters them.

God’s plan for us from the beginning was growth from perfection to perfection everlasting elevation to Himself. This is still the divine order for our lives albeit conformed to the tangle of sin and distortion they weave.

What it looked like before sin:

When Adam had been alone long eneogh to fulfill the reason it was good to experience loneliness, being alone was no longer good. God announced this, " It is not good that the man is alone" Adam’s state of being alone became a suffering of loneliness that drove him to seek a remedy. Although Adam didn’t know it ,it was time for him to be prepared for the perfection to come. Under God’s guidance he sought the remedy to loneliness yet everything he did, in the end, proved to be fruitless in finding the remedy. But it wasn’t meant to find a remedy but to prepare him to recieve it. If he hadn’t gone through it he wouldn’t be able to recieve the remedy. Adam had to exhaust all the possibilities that existed in the world that seemed like cures to loneliness. Only then could God take out from within him the Woman and cure to his loneliness. The joy of the new life, the arrival of the perfection to come. Not really the remedy for a sickness after all but more like the filling of a wineglass that had grown and could hold more wine.🙂
 
Hi Monica,

I have similar questions to your in the sense that I don’t see any good coming from my suffering and wonder why seem people seem to breeze through theirs.

However, I would just like to say, that since you do not tell your friends about your family background, it proves the point that perhaps they too do not let you know their dark side. For all you know they wonder how you manage so well and they believe they suffer more.

As for not thinking your suffering is that bad… Only God can judge the degrees of suffering but trust me, He wants to help with yours.

I think orphans in Africa don’t suffer nearly as much as we think. First of all, they did not grow up like I did seeing TV shows where it appear kids had everything and were so cool and I though I was weird because my parents didn’t think I was cute when I repeated what a kid was allowed to say on TV. A kid in Canada whose parents die is alone on an island. These kids have plenty of peers who know how they feel. A lot of kids in Canada feel cheated if their parents don’t buy them a cell phone. A kid in Africa doesn’t even know what that is so they don’t feel cheated.

CM
 
I want you to read this. A good friend of mine who is only 17years old who is joining a convent next year to be cloistered Catholic nun wrote this. She actually dedicated to me! I know your feeling about dealing with suffering. Send me a message if you ever need somebody to rant to. I’m pretty understanding and willing to share my story of suffering and surviving it.

We all have our trials to bear, as a result of the first sin on earth, we are vulnerable to all kinds of evil. Some of us experience more trials and suffering than others… but nobody escapes it completely. But God is goodness itself, and He can bring evils to good. Which is why we cry “Oh happy fault! Which has won for us so great a Savior!” Even in our affliction we are drawn closer to our heavenly Father in love.

Shortly put, there are two ways which we can bear affliction. The first is virtuously, and it is not only honorable, but also brings us greater rewards for our pains. To bear trials virtuously, one must have great faith in God and seek to please Him through patient perseverance, trusting in God’s promise to save him. One who bears affliction in virtue is a person of great Charity: a person who forgets himself in his love of God and neighbor, forgiving all his enemies. He is also prayerful, for he looks to God for strength, begging the Most High to deliver him from those trials which he is not strong enough to bear. He takes all suffering in stride, calmly accepting all that comes. A virtuous person not only bears affliction, but he uses it to bring himself closer to the Supreme Good. He smiles, prays, and loves even when he is most destitute, and trusts in God even unto death.

The second way one bears affliction is the way that most people do. Rather than having extreme faith and working towards the greatest virtue, we simply live through our difficulties. We cry and bemoan our anguish while alone and with others. We beg God to make it stop, and wonder when it will end, waiting, not so patiently, for our deliverance. We try to bring ourselves out of our troubles, and generally have a sense of anxiousness, fear, or depression about us as we encounter things we cannot change. We are patient and persevering because we have to be in order to live, unintentionally seeing bankruptcy, suffering, and death as ends to be avoided at all costs. In our minds, we are running from the shadows of our greatest fears, or mentally crying our “I can’t take it anymore!” Thus, this method of bearing affliction is much more discomforting mentally, spiritually, and even bodily than the virtuous method… but when our troubles finally pass, we generally feel a sense of growth, growth we had not realized during our sufferings.

What is this growth that comes from suffering? Temporally we mature and gain experience and perseverance. Unless we have lost the fight and have been driven back into the terrain of demons, we also grow in goodness and mental strength. Spiritually, we gain much more. When Jesus Christ made the Supreme Sacrifice, He gave us the opportunity to share in the merits of this sacrifice. When we suffer (if we suffer well), we are directly linked to Christ in His Sufferings and become heirs to the Fatherly pleasure with which God looked upon His Son’s sufferings. We also become closer to God in love. For what person could not love more when his loved one is in pain or danger? God is no exception! When we share in Christ’s sufferings we have a sense of empathy between us, a love that passes deeper with understanding.

In our pains, we are strengthened by the remembrance of saints who have suffered. Indeed, there are many we can turn to in our troubles! St. Paul suffered fatigue from long missionary journeys, sorrows from straying sheep, pain from stoning and scourging, long imprisonment, and finally martyrdom. St. Therese suffered spiritual trials of scrupulousness, longing, fear, sadness, and great darkness of soul. St. Francis suffered grave illness in the flower of his youth. St. Margaret Mary suffered paralysis and family struggles. St. Thomas more was a victim of politics, struggling to keep his beautiful family from harm, he was beheaded because his opinions differed from the king’s in favor of his Catholic faith.

St. Damien spent many years ministering to a dirty leper colony before dying of leprosy himself. St. Isaac Jogues was brutally martyred by the Indians he loved so much. The first American Nun, Lydia Longely, lost her family in a brutal indian raid, and was taken into slavery. St. Collette had to leave the shelter of her anchorage to save the hurting Franciscan Order, suffering from life on the waves of a world in turmoil. St. Catherine of Siena suffered from great penances in reparation for the sins of the world. St. Augustine suffered from grave sin. St. Maria Goretti was stabbed 14 times and lay in anguish before dying hours later. St. John Fisher, tired after many long years of service to his people (he was a bishop), was martyred as an old man. These good people and many others suffered great tribulation… and found God’s goodness and love as their reward. We can take their lives as our example, and use them to ignite our hope when we suffer.

If you are suffering afflictions, fear, or spiritual troubles… have faith and hope, for many others before you suffered and were saved by Christ. Be glad that you can suffer, for greater rewards await you than you could ever have dreamed. Offer your sufferings to God, pray to Him and ask Him for help, and He will help you. He will make you strong and guard you. Remember that your angel is near, taking care of you, and thank him, asking him each night to guard you as you sleep. Earth lasts such a short time, and all things pass away, but Heaven is forever, and God’s eyes can see that our joys will far outweigh our sufferings.

By Joscelyn Voight
 
thanks so much everyone! 🙂

Jet, that is very beautiful, what your friend wrote! 🙂 and very true.

I’m beginning to see suffering a little bit differently. I think instead of complaining about it, I want to embrace it for love of God… I want to love suffering .Sometimes I do, but other times I feel afraid. However a while ago, I felt like I was loosing God, and that made me realize that no amount of suffering in this life can compare to loosing Him or sinning or going to hell. It’s better to endure the worst torments… I think it’s really helped to realize that this is the worst thing. As St Padre Pio said, as long as you receive Jesus in the Eucharist you are very fortunate! 🙂 also, we can use suffering to help other souls…that is a huge gift!

it is an honour to share in Christ’s Cross… it might be that we are more deserving of consolations, than of suffering. And the reward of sharing in His Cross is to share in His joy and glory.
St. Therese suffered spiritual trials of scrupulousness, longing, fear, sadness, and great darkness of soul.
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this is really encouraging, because she’s my favourite Saint and recently I’ve been going through those things too. I want to be more like her and embrace my sufferings, and also hide them instead of complaining…

God bless… thanks for all your replies 🙂
 
God is the source of all true happiness and pleasure. Originally, humanity was in unimpeded unity with God, so there was no pain. When humanity turned away from Him in the Garden of Eden, we turned toward ourselves rather than toward God. His goal is to get us back to that state of union with Him.

When we sinned, we separated ourselves from the source of true happiness and pleasure, and the necessary consequence of that is misery and pain. In fact, this consequence is not only just, but it is also a path back to salvation for those who can accept it.

Suffering is a gift because it gives us the power, through Christ’s Cross united with our own, to detach from our sinful natures and unite ourselves to God. If we were given no earthly suffering, we would not detach ourselves from our sinful natures but would remain in them, destined only for eternal loss of the God we never sought.

Suffering, for those that embrace God’s will in it, becomes a means of detaching ourselves from our sinful natures and restoring our union with the true source of happiness, God. We turned from God to ourselves; suffering helps us to turn from ourselves to God, if we allow it to do so by choosing Him even in the suffering. C.S. Lewis says pain is God’s “loudspeaker to humanity,” a fitting description.

Some people cling to their sinful and worldly attachments in spite of suffering, and they hate God because the suffering undercuts the pleasure they get from their comfortable lives in the world. If their comfortable lives in the world were not jarred by suffering, they would not turn to God and enter into true life and happiness. God seems abominable to them because He is seeking, out of love, to deprive them of what they want so that they will look beyond these passing things to the eternal and choose Him instead. Yet these souls do not want to be deprived of their pride, selfishness and sinful dispositions and worldly attachments. They want to hold onto their sinful natures, so they accuse God because He hurts them, and through the selfish disposition of their wills, the pain they endure becomes justice rather than mercy. This is all because they do not choose to profit from the pain. When they refuse to profit from the pain, they are only punished by it, and they deserve what they receive because they reject it. For those who choose to profit from the pain, however, it is transformed into love and joy as it results in union with God, and He rewards them for having chosen Him in suffering by giving them Himself. For them, the Garden of Eden is restored. For those who reject it, Paradise is lost forever.

It’s as if souls were standing on a ship holding onto a chest full of gold, and then they jumped off. The chest is their sin. God jumps in after them and tries to pry the chest out of their hands. They become angry at Him for His effort, because they want that chest of gold. If they insist on holding onto the chest of gold, they drown. If they let go, accepting the loss God imposes on them for their own good rather than fighting it and Him, they rise to the surface of the water and their lives are saved.

Pain is about detaching us from sin. If we look to God while we suffer, that suffering will become mercy for our souls by bringing us to the ultimate source of happiness and joy. If we turn from God while we suffer, that suffering will become justice for our souls as we receive nothing more than the due penalty our sinful disposition deserves.
 
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