Your suffering is valuable. Don't let it go to waste

[gbradshaw]

Great thread. Stuff we all wonder about from time to time I think. I have to watch my heart because its easy to think if I don’t feel joy when I’m giving something (little or big) to God then I’m missing the mark somehow. Even though our culture tells us differently, Joy is not a feeling. Just like love, its a decision. I decide to live out my Morning Offering to God each day. This often leads to a feeling of joy, esp in retrospect, but I seldom experience a feeling while I making the offering.
Jesus knows all this. He accepts (I think with joy) the offerings I give him during the day and, the fact that my feelings usually don’t cooperate, makes the offering more precious to him. Whether we bring the suffering on ourselves by our own actions or not is immaterial. If we all got the sufferings we deserve by our actions, we wouldn’t be able to move.
The most amazing thing to me is the growing realization (after many yrs) that the reality is that, since Jesus lives in me, actually he’s the one making the offerings to the Father each day because by myself I can do nothing.

 

[kentuckyliz]

Amen!

Joy is not happiness. You can have joy in all circumstances, no matter what.

It’s not even necessarily the overcoming of suffering, just accepting it peacefully and enduring it.

I am on my third primary cancer and going through chemo now and radiation after New Year’s.

The night before my PET CT scan that detected this surprise cancer (it was actually a follow-up scan for having a low ongoing cell count in my bloodstream from another cancer)–I had my Agony in the Garden prayer–the dread. BUT I decided in prayer that NO MATTER WHAT THE RESULTS that God is good, and I will have peace and joy in all circumstances, and Jesus Christ be praised today, tomorrow, and forever.

So ten days later when I got the shock of the diagnosis, I was upset and in grief for EXACTLY ONE DAY.

As the Psalmist says, “At night I soak my pillow with tears, but His joy comes in the morning.” After that one day, when I woke up the next morning, I was perfectly fine and happy and joyful. I knew everything was going to be OK. And that “OK” has nothing to do with treatment success or prognosis or whether I live or die–that “OK” is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and it comes from knowing that I am a daughter of the King and no silly crazy biology can kill my immortal soul. God is with me and will never leave me, even if I have terrible physical suffering along my way to Him. Of course I have a natural human dread of severe pain like I saw my mom suffer when she was dying of this same cancer. But even my dread is not strange to God, who Himself sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.

I had been studying the redemptive power of suffering leading up until this time, and I think that was also Divine Providence. I quickly assembled a prayer intentions journal and vowed to consecrate my suffering as prayer fuel for how I pray for others.

And it has been a great opportunity for witness to other non-Catholic Christians who have no concept of offering it up and the redemptive value of suffering. I’ve been teaching Col 1:24 to others really intensely lately and requesting all their “hopeless cases” prayer intentions–and asking them to keep praying for those intentions, with me, and wait for miracles.

I choose to reject sadness and despair because it isn’t really useful or helpful. I am making a sport of finding the funny and helping others to deal.

I fully expect to live and survive for many decades, and I refuse to have side effects just because other people do. Dwelling too much on the list of possible side effects on the chemo drug info that they give you can freak you out and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. have pretty minimal side effects and it’s not too bad. I am not wasting away and have never missed eating. Never thrown up. I have a really good book that tells you what to eat/avoid eating, what OTC and Rx drugs to use for different side effects you’re experiencing and it has been so helpful in staying nourished and strong and well.

Prayer is dust in my mouth right now, but I am offering up my current sucky cancer treatment life as a prayer, and I know God accepts my gift and will use it as He sees fit. I am glad this suffering isn’t useless or wasted. Now THAT would be depressing.

 

[Joab_Anias]

Amen!

Joy is not happiness. You can have joy in all circumstances, no matter what.

It’s not even necessarily the overcoming of suffering, just accepting it peacefully and enduring it.

I am on my third primary cancer and going through chemo now and radiation after New Year’s.

The night before my PET CT scan that detected this surprise cancer (it was actually a follow-up scan for having a low ongoing cell count in my bloodstream from another cancer)–I had my Agony in the Garden prayer–the dread. BUT I decided in prayer that NO MATTER WHAT THE RESULTS that God is good, and I will have peace and joy in all circumstances, and Jesus Christ be praised today, tomorrow, and forever.

So ten days later when I got the shock of the diagnosis, I was upset and in grief for EXACTLY ONE DAY.

As the Psalmist says, “At night I soak my pillow with tears, but His joy comes in the morning.” After that one day, when I woke up the next morning, I was perfectly fine and happy and joyful. I knew everything was going to be OK. And that “OK” has nothing to do with treatment success or prognosis or whether I live or die–that “OK” is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and it comes from knowing that I am a daughter of the King and no silly crazy biology can kill my immortal soul. God is with me and will never leave me, even if I have terrible physical suffering along my way to Him. Of course I have a natural human dread of severe pain like I saw my mom suffer when she was dying of this same cancer. But even my dread is not strange to God, who Himself sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.

I had been studying the redemptive power of suffering leading up until this time, and I think that was also Divine Providence. I quickly assembled a prayer intentions journal and vowed to consecrate my suffering as prayer fuel for how I pray for others.

And it has been a great opportunity for witness to other non-Catholic Christians who have no concept of offering it up and the redemptive value of suffering. I’ve been teaching Col 1:24 to others really intensely lately and requesting all their “hopeless cases” prayer intentions–and asking them to keep praying for those intentions, with me, and wait for miracles.

I choose to reject sadness and despair because it isn’t really useful or helpful. I am making a sport of finding the funny and helping others to deal.

I fully expect to live and survive for many decades, and I refuse to have side effects just because other people do. Dwelling too much on the list of possible side effects on the chemo drug info that they give you can freak you out and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. have pretty minimal side effects and it’s not too bad. I am not wasting away and have never missed eating. Never thrown up. I have a really good book that tells you what to eat/avoid eating, what OTC and Rx drugs to use for different side effects you’re experiencing and it has been so helpful in staying nourished and strong and well.

Prayer is dust in my mouth right now, but I am offering up my current sucky cancer treatment life as a prayer, and I know God accepts my gift and will use it as He sees fit. I am glad this suffering isn’t useless or wasted. Now THAT would be depressing.

How beautiful! Thanks for sharing this,
Your in my prayers, please pray for me also.

 

[fin]

Thanks for this post. I’ve been suffering lately, spiritual, emotional, it’s really weird. It’s a good thing I am reminded that I am offering up every detail of each day by saying the Morning Offering prayer. I offer up my sufferings usually for the conversion of sinners, salvation of souls, for the souls in purgatory, and other things.

 

[Nandarani]

KENTUCKYLIZ: Thank you for your letter. It is one of the jewels helping and healing us all on this very good thread.

 

[BigRedpg51]

Our suffering, by itself, is not much in terms of healing or redemptive value. But, when we join it with the suffering of Our Lord Jesus during His bitter Passion, it takes on infinite value…because of the infinite value of Jesus’ offering.

So, when you are suffering from some illness or discomfort…remember to offer it up to God Our Father united with the bitter suffering of Jesus during His Passion and death.