Ponderings on Suffering

“Well at least you found out now instead of later.”  This is the singular advice I got repeatedly when life hit rock bottom for me over a year ago.  It had to do with a broken engagement and a lot of pain.  People were kind and tried their best to comfort me but I have to be honest this piece of advice did nothing for me.  In fact in many ways it made me feel stupid.  Now I want to let people reading this understand that I know their hearts were in the right place but no matter what advice they gave me I would have hated it.  Sitting in sadness and pain you are just trying to hold yourself together.  When the pain is fresh your not ready for any rational pieces of advice or comfort.  All that is before a person is weeping and trying to make themselves get out of bed in the morning.  As I reflect on those dark times I come to a revelation.  The two singular things done for me that helped were close friends hurting with me and others letting me know I was not alone.

I am blessed with many close friends.  My roommate is one in particular. When all this mess was going on he would sit with me and let me cry.  He would not try to tell me how to feel better or why this was better for my life.  He would just sit and let me be.  This seems like your doing nothing but what happens is that your doing everything.  When Jewish families would have mourning for a death in the family they would gather in the house and sit together.  There was no talking but just the collective love and affection of going through the pain together.  See what is hard for all of us is to let ourselves feel helpless with the person in suffering.  We want to fix it and make it better.  We want to make them happy because to many of us this is showing love.  What I discovered is that the true act of love is when you let go of what you want for your friend and willingly enter into this pain they are going through with them.  When you have another who cries with you or just sits with  you and amazing thing happens hope appears.

I was also encouraged by classmates and sometimes people I barely knew who would share their stories of going through the same series of events.  This just reinforced the idea I was not alone.  Isn’t it interesting that when suffering comes you think your the only one going through it?  When your surrounded by others that lie is easier to disbelieve and hope appears.

“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3–5 ESV)

Now I could not fathom this a year ago.  I can now though.  I can look at these words by Paul and understand something about how suffering produces endurance or perseverance.  I can witness to it in my own life.  I can visibly see the character that has changed in me.  I can see the hope that surrounds me.  But I could not do it then when I was in the middle of ground zero.  See theological ideas are great.  They are true understandings about God’s character but when your in the middle of suffering it just looks like silliness.  What Paul is trying to illustrate to the Roman church is that suffering is actually love from God because in this a person develops closer to their creator.  This may sound crazy to many but think about it.  When everything is good and great you rely on yourself.  Your focus is on other things.  But when calamity happens how do you develop?  I workout 3 times a week with a very good friend of mine and the only way to develop is to physically hurt ourselves.  We lift muscles, run sprints and do everything to breakdown our muscles so they develop.  Our lives are no different development comes through pain.  That is why I can look at this text and connect.  I am not saying I am all big crazy smiles all the time.  I still feel pain from this but I do find comfort now in what scripture teaches and the advice I am given.  The dark does not last forever… just likes to make you feel that way.

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