Beauty From Suffering | Suffering - a Gift?

I do not like to suffer. I also do not like you to suffer! I would really like to skip suffering all together.

Suffering. I looked up the definition. To experience or be subject to something bad or unpleasant. To be forced to endure. Yuck! Honestly, that sounds no fun. Suffering is not a subject I like to dwell on. I am not a fan.  I’d rather not. And I would rather you didn’t have to either.

But the truth is, we can’t avoid suffering. Sometimes life is hard. It just is.  When someone who we love does something that hurts our feelings. When someone outright betrays our trust. When we feel left out. When we feel alone. When we are misunderstood, or not heard. When hard things happen to us or to people we care about. When we are not well. When we’re in physical pain. When someone dies. The list goes on. And I guess there is no denying it… sometimes life is hard. Sometimes there is suffering.

It’s coming up on Easter. And suffering is a part of Easter. Honestly, I used to wish it wasn’t. I would rather skip to the resurrection. Come on! New life, death defeated, Heaven coming to earth, victory! Aren’t we glad this is our reality? YES!!!!

But before the celebration, Jesus asks us to come with Him to the cross. He invites us to walk with Him through His last days, His last moments, and right up to the end. Why?

Does He want to teach us the significance? Does He want to model some things? Does He want us to see how much He loves us? Yes! But He is also offering us a gift. The gift of being with Him in His suffering.

In Luke 23:49, after Jesus took His last breath on the cross and the crowds watching had gone away, the Bible says: “But standing off at a distance were some who truly knew Jesus.” Selah. Who was with Jesus at this end?  Who walked with Him all the way? Through the betrayals, through the crowds’ hate, through the pain and the beating, through the brutal rawness, through the ultimate suffering? Who was still there? It was those who truly knew Jesus.  

Wow. That made me think of my life, my suffering. Who are those I want by my side at my worst moment? And who will stay until the end? Who do I invite into my suffering, and who’s suffering am I willing to endure? The answer - those who truly know me.  

Once wonderful friends of mine called to tell me the terrible news that their daughter had unexpectedly passed away. I was heartbroken for them. I was heartbroken for me too, because I loved their daughter. I got off the phone and was in shock. I didn’t know what to do. I called them right back and asked if I could come be with them. They said yes, and I dropped everything and went. It wasn’t even a question. I wanted to be with them and they wanted me there, and there was nothing else I could do but go. I didn’t have any way to make it better, I couldn’t change what had happened, I didn’t have any plan that could take away their suffering… but I could be there.  Looking back, that to me was a sacred moment. They were inviting me into their suffering. What an honor that was to be there. And really all I could do was to be there, to be present, to witness and love in that moment. I will never forget it.

Sharing suffering is a gift. It’s generous. In a way that is deeper than a thought process, or something you can do, or a solution. Both offering the gift of inviting someone into your suffering and the gift of accepting the invitation. There is a cost to both. Sharing suffering is painful and helpless and vulnerable. But the reward is great.  

I thought about that evening with my friends, sitting with them as the reality of their suffering was settling. I thought about others, who have been with me in my suffering. What are the results? What impact do these shared moments have? It changes you. The words don’t do it justice, but in an attempt to describe what happens in these moments between people, I would try words like trust, intimacy, friendship, security, honor, reliance... These words become real. They become a shared experience, a reality that you’ve had together, a deepening. Shared suffering is an experience that you both move on from changed.

And that is what Jesus invites us into. As we watch as He sweats blood in the garden, and we know He just wants us to be near. As He is wrongly accused, as He is stripped and mocked and beaten, but He knows someone who loves Him is close. As we hurry to find places to follow along the way, as we watch Him fall, and see Him catch our eye. As we stay as He struggles for breath on the cross, as we witness Him exchange a few last words and care for His mother. As the sky goes dark and the ground rumbles, and He takes His last breath. As He dies, we are there. Sharing that sacred moment. Truly knowing Him and offering our gift of presence. And we walk away changed.

Jesus, thank You for inviting us into experiencing this with You.  Thank You that You will also be with us - in our worst, witnessing our ends, and present for our suffering. Thank You that our relationship with You includes intimacy, trust, security, friendship, honor, reliance, and real connection and relationship. That You endured the cross for the joy set before You, and that joy includes You thinking of each of us. Thank You for suffering, and for the gift of inviting us into it with You. Amen

Hebrews 12:1-2 (NKJV)
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the [a]author and [b]finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

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About the Author

Pam is a fun and encouraging team-builder that brings the best to those around her. She loves people and is committed to serving and mentoring kids, women and families with opportunities to grow closer to God and each other.

Pam is currently serving as Children and Family Pastor at Valley Christian Center in Albany. Pam and her husband, Jared, have been married since 2005 and have three boys. Their family will always be a much loved part of our CitySalt family.

Beauty From Suffering | A Dry and Weary Land

Please note that this post is longer than what’s typical, but well worth the read. Join Sarah as she delves into a unique and meaningful perspective on suffering, and invite the Spirit to speak to your heart in his way of grace-filled conviction.

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In the last week, I’ve been overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the impossibility of my job, impotence in the face of health struggles of my friends and family, horrific flooding in Nebraska and Mozambique, a mass shooting at a mosque in New Zealand, and worry that climate change will mean that my child will one day experience food insecurity. In response, I’ve doubled down on strategies to be more effective during my work day, brainstormed ways for my friends to get relief, checked in on Nebraska colleagues, attended a vigil in solidarity with the local Islamic center, and wondered if my family could learn to grow all our own food. In other words, in the face of incredible suffering past, present, and promised, I’ve tried to play God as best as I can.

Ask me how that’s working out for me.

Honestly, this week wasn’t really much worse or more intense than others. And my reaction wasn’t much different, either. I’m not particularly proud of it, but this has been the response I’ve developed living in a world that it sometimes feels like God forgot.

At a conference recently, with a gathering of theology and religion teachers who are committed to creation care, a Jewish Rabbi relayed part of the following Midrash. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but as injustices and sorrows have piled on in the weeks following, it has woven its way deeper and deeper into resonance with my dry and weary soul:

The Midrash describes the birth of Judaism with the following cryptic parable:

“And G‑d said to Abraham: ‘Go from your land, your birthplace, and your father's house…’” (Genesis12:2) — To what may this be compared? To a man who was traveling from place to place when he saw a palace in flames. He wondered: ‘Is it possible that the palace has no owner?’ The owner of the palace looked out and said, ‘I am the owner of the palace.’ So Abraham our father said, ‘Is it possible that the world lacks a ruler?’ G‑d looked out and said to him, ‘I am the ruler, the Sovereign of the universe.’

Abraham's bewilderment is clear. This sensitive human being gazes at a brilliantly structured universe, a splendid piece of art. He is overwhelmed by the grandeur of a sunset and by the miracle of childbirth; he marvels at the roaring ocean waves and at the silent, steady beat of the human heart. The world is indeed a palace.

But the palace is in flames. The world is full of bloodshed, injustice and strife. Thugs, abusers, rapists, kidnappers and killers are continuously demolishing the palace, turning our world into an ugly tragic battlefield of untold pain and horror.

What happened to the owner of the palace? Abraham cries. Why does G‑d allow man to destroy His world? Why does He permit such a beautiful palace to go up in flames? Could G‑d have made a world only to abandon it? Would anyone build a palace and then desert it?

The Midrash records G‑d's reply: ‘The owner of the palace looked out and said: “I am the owner of the palace.” G‑d looked out and said to Abraham: “I am the ruler, the Sovereign of the universe.‘”

What is the meaning of G‑d's response?

Note that the owner of the palace does not make an attempt to get out of the burning building or to extinguish the flames. He is merely stating that He is the owner of the palace that is going up in smoke. It is as if, instead of racing out, the owner were calling for help. G‑d made the palace, man set it on fire, and only man can put out the flames. Abraham asks G‑d, ‘Where are you?’ G‑d replies, ‘I am here, where are you?’ Man asks G‑d, ‘Why did You abandon the world?’ G‑d asks man, ‘Why did you abandon Me?’

Thus began the revolution of Judaism --- humanity's courageous venture to extinguish the flames of immorality and bloodshed and restore the world to the harmonious and sacred palace it was intended to be. Abraham's encounter with G‑d in the presence of a burning palace gave birth to the mission statement of Judaism - to be obsessed with good and horrified by evil. (Midrash Rabbah Bereishit 39:1; as interpreted by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in Radical Then, Radical Now, Harper Collins, 2000).

Perhaps Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel also felt the palace burning when he wrote the story in Night of three people hung on gallows in a Nazi concentration camp. One of the victims, a young boy, suffered a prolonged death, so small was his neck. “For God’s sake, where is God?” asks one of the men forced to watch the execution. “And from within me,” says the protagonist, “I heard a voice answer: ‘Where is He? This is where—hanging here from this gallows…’”

Is God dead? I don’t think so. I think God is there, being hung on the gallows. There, watching in horror with the other captives. Even there, knocking at the hearts of the soldiers who did unspeakable things in Nazi death camps, and the citizens who allowed the atrocities to take place. In the spiritual drought of frustration, of anger, of helplessness, of overwhelm...perhaps in that weary land of unjustified suffering, perhaps when there is no actual water, God is still with us.

It was really difficult for me to think about this season’s blog topic, “Beauty from Suffering.” I don’t think suffering is beautiful. I don’t think human suffering is particularly redemptive, or good. As a person who has walked through the world with many privileges (my nonprofit wages put me in the top .3% of the world’s earners; I’ve never feared my child would be taken from me at a border crossing; and I’m white, educated, physically able, etc.), I feel really uncomfortable lifting up the benefits of suffering. Suffering isn’t the way things are supposed to be. Suffering isn’t really supposed to be at all, we’ve simply inherited it as a reality thanks to sin, and, as Christians, we believe we’re living with it while God moves to reconcile the whole of Creation back to the Creator.

Yet it exists. Suffering exists. We must all deal with suffering in some way. Suffering changes us all in some way. We all react to suffering in some way.

The first time I ever tried to talk to fellow Christians about industrialized animal farming was at a Christian music festival at a Baptist church in central Washington. It was blistering hot, and my friend Jason and I were standing under a thin tent in the parking lot, listening to a 13-minute loop of undercover investigation footage play on a portable DVD player while we fielded questions from festival-goers. I don’t remember most of the people I talked to that day. But I’ll never forget the face of one man in particular, or his words.

He asked why we were there at the festival. I described some of the legal cruelties that animals endure on intensive farms, which supply about 78% (cows used for beef) 99.9% (chickens) of all meat, dairy, and eggs in our country. I said, “Twenty seven billion land animals are raised and killed for food each year, and that’s in the U.S. alone.” And he said, “And thank God for that.”

Thank God for that. Fifteen years later, the words still ring in my ears. Thank God for that.

Thank God for that?

It seems astonishingly callous, given the misery endured by those billions (plus trillions of fish); the environmental damage caused by the system; the inhumane conditions industrial farms and slaughterhouses create for the people with few other options but to work there; and the ways industrial animal agriculture contributes to global food and water insecurity.

I felt angry then. And the suffering that I advocated against then still exists now, in spades (read the link at the article, we’ll come back to it later). Today, I just feel resigned. This is my life, having this conversation, again and again and again.

As a follower of Jesus, I read the Midrash with a different ending. I believe something changes when Jesus dies on the cross, a dark day of Lent that we remember together on Good Friday. I believe Jesus’ death and resurrection, his triumph over the grave, and the Holy Spirit left to us for the “already, but not yet” time...I know that should be enough to slake my thirst for justice, righteousness, beauty, and hope. But I confess, it isn’t always. There are times when I know what I believe, but I believe I have very little faith.

The night he was betrayed, John’s gospel tells us that Jesus prayed fervently for his disciples, pleading with God to care for them in his coming absence. But Jesus doesn’t pray for the disciples to not experience the woes of the world, or to be removed from society, to wall themselves off:

John 17:13-26, NRSV
“But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves...I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one...As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world...The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world...I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

As Christians, we know that Jesus has done the work of redemption, that the work of putting out the palace flames isn’t entirely in human hands, but as Jesus-followers, we also know that we are called to take action daily to pick up that cross and follow him. I’m not very good at countering suffering with love. But that’s what Jesus did, that’s what God does, whether or not we can feel it through the layers of sick through which we sometimes encounter the Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer of the world.

Last month, I got the opportunity to spend two days with the veterinarian who blew the whistle on the horrors he witnessed in Nebraska. That New York Times article means he can’t find a job in his field, his marriage ended, his life now is not what he imagined it would be. But he’s finding meaning in new projects with surprising new partners. He’s curious and his sense of humor is still intact. And he’s doing life-saving work. A friend of mine was able to use his financial resources to help a Guatemalan refugee family travel to their sponsors in Colorado. And I don’t often feel like I have much love to give, but we adopted a dog this week who’s been bounced around to too many homes in her short life. She’s a perfect hot mess, just like this life.

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About the Author

Sarah is the author of Vegangelical: How Caring for Animals Can Shape Your Faith (Zondervan, 2016) and Animals Are Not Ours (No, Really, They’re Not): An Evangelical Animal Liberation Theology (Cascade Books, 2016). She spends her days working for CreatureKind, helping Christians put their faith into action. She lives in Eugene with her husband, son, and animal companions and enjoys action movies, black coffee, the daily crossword, and dreaming of her next international journey.

Beauty From Suffering | You are Here: Use the Force for Good

Yesterday was the first day of spring break. When the weather forecast changed at the last minute to mostly sunny in Florence, my family and I made a semi-spontaneous decision to go to the beach. I thought we should try a new beach, and I remembered a hike my parents and I had often done when I was a child. I looked up Tahkenitch Creek on my phone, and it showed a kid-friendly 1.4-mile loop. Sounded like a scenic and easy way to get to the beach by hiking through some dunes!

After paying our $5 at the parking lot, we grabbed some snacks, towels and beach toys and set off on our walk. We brought one small water bottle, figuring we could drink more water when we got back to the car. The hike wound through dunes and coastal forest, and after awhile we came to a sign with a cryptic trail map. “You are here,” it said, with a red dot showing us on a looping trail that did not appear to lead to the beach. The sign also showed a picture of another, larger loop, which also did not appear to lead to the beach. Then there was another, much longer trail that looked like it might lead to the beach.

The map didn’t show distances. I tried to scan my childhood memory. I knew we had hiked to the beach on this trail many times. But how long was it? And hadn’t my mom recently recommended I try this hike with my 6 and 3-year-old children?

It couldn’t be that long.

We decided to keep hiking in the direction that we guessed led to the ocean. Eventually we did come to a sign that said “Beach” and had an arrow. Someone had scratched “1.7 miles” into the sign. Did that mean the beach was 1.7 miles from the sign? Or that it would be 1.7 miles round trip to the beach and back from the sign?

We had already been hiking for awhile. But the beach had been promised. We reasoned we might as well keep going, although our small water supply was dwindling.

James 1:2-4 (NIV)
“Consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Persevering, eventually we did reach the sea. We made it! Our kids had walked the whole way with only mild complaining (and a few tears). We enjoyed resting in the sun on the beach and playing in the sand. Spencer and Marie walked off to explore. Paul, our 3-year-old, started following them and I stayed near him to make sure he was safe. Suddenly Spencer called to me and pointed behind me. A freak sneaker wave had come up to where we’d been sitting, soaking all of our stuff and pulling some of it back towards the waves. We ran back and grabbed everything. Nothing was lost or ruined, but I now had to carry a bag of heavy, soaking wet towels 3 miles back to our car.

So we decided it was time to head back. By now I had a raging headache, and the straps from the canvas grocery bag I had turned into a makeshift backpack were digging into my shoulders. Still we kept going, with Paul being carried much of the way. Now that we had figured out the trail, we went a slightly different route home. Part of it was through hills of sand dunes, and we pretended we were hiking through the Sahara Desert. It helped that I was very thirsty. The tension from my headache was now radiating through my whole body and my back was burning with pain. But, walking through the dunes, Paul and I decided we were Star Wars jedis and that we had light sabers out to protect us. Then Marie created her own story about being a mermaid. Eventually, our rag-tag Jedi/mermaid team made it back to our car where we had more snacks and water waiting for us. It had been a 6-mile hike, yet my kids had barely complained.

I was suffering in pain for a lot of that hike. I have a high pain threshold — I have experienced natural childbirth twice — but the headache and back pain I was feeling during this hike was still pretty awful. I could have complained a lot. Or just gotten really cranky. That would be a legitimate reaction to pain. Instead, I did what I often do in challenging situations, which is to try to make things easier for those around me. I entertained the kids by telling them fairy tales. I made sand castles on the beach. I made jokes about how silly and typical it was that my mom would recommend such a long hike for our wee children. I became a Jedi knight, wielding a light saber and using The Force for good. My husband also was a good sport, not blaming me for the misadventure and carrying our little one for miles on his shoulders.

As a result, I don’t think this day will be recorded in our minds as a bad memory. It will be remembered as an adventure, one of those “remember that time when?” stories that will bond us together.

Last week, I spent an entire day in a training about trauma in early childhood. The presenter talked about how we may not experience difficult events as traumatic if we have adequate support during those events. The way that the people around us support us – or don’t – during challenging events, affects the way that our memories are encoded. Not that hiking equates to a trauma, but it still could have easily ended up a bad memory.

Suffering can be beautiful in that it gives us the best opportunity to develop perseverance and character. It gives us an opportunity to choose to turn towards God when things are hard. It can also bond us together, giving us the chance to give and accept help as needed. Remember, the greatest Jedi warriors have turned their suffering into strength.

May the Force be with you.

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About the Author

Ursula and her husband Spencer have two young children, and their family enjoys playing hide-and-seek and dancing in the living room. She works as a communications and events coordinator with the University of Oregon. Ursula is also CitySalt’s Children’s Ministry Director. 

You can read more from Ursula at motherbearblog.com.

Beauty From Suffering | Rise and Live to Smile Again

Beauty from suffering? Are you crazy?! I’ve had that very thought in the past, but now have a slightly different perspective.

I refer to the beauty that can come from suffering when molded in God’s hands. I’m focused on the supernatural beauty of spirit that He exchanges for the ashes of our dark times spent in hopelessness and pain. I’ve experienced this dynamic in my life, and I recognize this kind of beauty immediately when I see it in other people. Those that made a choice to continue trusting God and to live with abiding joy in the face of crippling emotional and physical circumstances. Whether it’s something urgently needed, person that never came, or a physical, emotional, or mental injury that has not healed.

The believer who carries their sorrows, yet continues to move forward in following Jesus, this person has the victory! They can have a visible anointing on them which has caused me to think to myself “I want to know more about this person! What choices have they made to produce such a clear display of God’s presence in their life?” This believer may feel their life is broken or incomplete, but yet they choose to trust what Jesus has told them in scripture. God’s beauty of spirit radiating from them is ample proof that He is still at work in their life.

The key, I’m learning from my experiences, is to stop running away from the suffering I see ahead of me, such as decades of a life alone, not entirely by choice, and with no resolution in sight. An emotional ache like the slow bleed of a long-term, small injury that zaps my strength and sometimes makes me want to stop in my tracks. I acknowledge that this part of the process never seems to get easier, but I steel myself despite my seemingly unmet needs, and choose to enter the crucible with God’s guidance. The times in which I have made this choice, in which I have silently carried my burning question of “Why Lord?,” and focused my attention on what he was assigning me now - these are my times of true victory. The life ahead of me, with new challenges and Holy Spirit assignments, is something I initially undertake for God’s sake and the benefit of others, but I later discover this persistence is also for my benefit.

My trusting obedience to move forward without answers has been when God has healed and transformed me to the next stage, the next level of knowing him. With the searing heat of the spiritual crucible still vivid in my mind and emotions, I faced my ashes, handed them over to God, and asked Him to redeem them somehow. He then lovingly touched my death-like experiences with His healing spirit, and transformed them into the redemptive lesson He designed them to be all along. I no longer needed my life circumstances to meet my expectations. When I allowed God’s presence in my life to expand and fill the deep internal void I felt daily, I found that His grace was sufficient even for me. His joy filled me to bursting and I had to share it with others, often without words. In this way, Christ resurrects me continually with His love, and I rise and live to smile again.

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About the Author

Sara has attended CitySalt Church since 2004, the year it was founded. She studied Journalism, wrote for her college newspaper, and is a member of Oregon Christian Writers. Sara also enjoys singing hymns with friends: “there is a sermon in every hymn waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.”

Beauty From Suffering | The Dark Night of the Soul

Just before Christmas break, I was talking to one of my closest friends about reading material. I was feeling a bit spiritually dry, and hoping for something to read that would refresh me and help me engage with God more deeply. Then I noticed on my bookshelf a book I’d bought but hadn’t read yet, I Loved Jesus in the Night: Teresa of Calcutta--A Secret Revealed by Paul Murray.

I’ve always looked up to the woman we call Mother Teresa. Of course, so does the rest of the world. But I like her especially because she is such an amazing example of loving people unconditionally and loving God deeply. She must have been especially close to God, right?

This book, written by a priest who knew her well, shows a side of her that we don’t usually hear about. She wrestled for long periods of time where she didn’t feel God’s presence or hear Him speaking to her in any way, despite drawing others closer to Him. Her faith sustained her, knowing in her heart that Jesus loved her intimately. But she couldn’t feel it and often wondered if she was even doing what God wanted her to be doing. The author notes that she experienced what is sometimes called “The Dark Night of the Soul” based on the writings of Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross. I’m still seeking to understand this concept, but from what I can tell, the “dark night” is a period of suffering that isn’t related to any particular event or circumstances, but is a spiritual crisis in someone’s journey of faith.

I’ll let you read the book to find out how Mother Teresa’s “dark night” experience unfolds, but I will say that reading it was both challenging and encouraging. Challenging because in the theology I am used to, God is always speaking to us and affirming us. But that doesn’t seem to always be true, even in the lives of people so deeply in love with him. So it is scary to think that even Mother Teresa could experience this struggle. But it’s also encouraging. As it says in Romans 5:3, “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” And we get to know Jesus better-- Philippians 3:10: “I want to know Christ-- yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings.” As Mother Teresa persevered in faith even in periods of not feeling His presence, she continued to bless others and bring them closer to Him. She continued to pray, trusting that He was near. That she went through this is also encouraging to me, because it makes her more human. More real. More like you and me. She wasn’t just the “super-saint” that we make her out to be. And if she can wrestle with this darkness and prevail by the power of her faith in God, so can we.

Sue Monk Kidd, the author of The Secret Life of Bees, writes about a similar personal journey in her book When the Heart Waits. My counselor made me read it several years ago. Reflecting on this topic, I picked it up today, and opened to a section about darkness. She has this to say about the darkness that is difficult to bear but is a positive part of our spiritual journey:

“In the Bible darkness is often used as a metaphor for sin or a lack of God’s presence. There are, however, references to darkness as a place where God dwells. ‘The Lord has set the sun in the heavens, but has said that he would dwell in thick darkness’ (1 Kings 8:12). ‘He made darkness his covering around him’ (Ps. 18:11)

God is in the dark. Traditionally this imagery suggests the ultimate unknowability of God. But when I read it from within the dark layers of my cocoon, I perceived a meaning quite different. The verses filled me with an affirmation that God enters the thick darkness of every creature. A voice said to me, “God suffers with you. God weeps with you. God lives your darkness. This is the recognition that turns our darkness into a shining thing.”

Father Murray acknowledges that most people don’t undergo this kind of suffering as intensely as Mother Teresa did. I don’t know why she had to bear it. But I do believe that everyone experiences suffering at some time in their lives, if they live very long at all. It can take many different forms and come from different origins. Sometimes it’s of our own making, the consequences of our choices. Other times it is at the hands of other people, or disease, accidents, or the breaking of relationship with someone. It can take the form of grief, depression, confusion, fear, or other difficult experiences. No matter the origin or form, it is painful. Sometimes crushingly so. But I believe it can also draw us closer to God, if we face it instead of running from it.

This is baffling to the world, but beautiful to those of us who have experienced His love in the midst of our suffering. Don’t fear the darkness. He is there in it , with you.

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About the Author

Jessie is an educator, currently in the role of academic advisor at a charter school after teaching there and overseas. She is also a novice writer, with several books in various stages and a (long-neglected) blog about the journeys of women. She is very excited to join the CitySalt blog team. She has been blessed by a few communities of Christian writers that have encouraged her dream. She lives with her trusty sidekick cat, Arwen in the foothills of South Eugene, where she can go hiking within minutes of the sun coming out from behind the clouds.

Beauty from Suffering | The Value in Suffering

Suffering. It's an ageless and perplexing subject because it’s personally so difficult to endure and also so hard when someone close to us is laboring under its heavy weight. We can (and should) empathize with our sufferers even as we feel helpless. We can’t fix it for them, but that’s not really our job.

Suffering is pain stretched out over time - “long-suffering” is a common biblical theme. No one wants to suffer, and few of us would want it for anyone else, even perhaps someone who's wronged us horrifically. Beyond suggesting a Suffering Survival Guide here, the question should be posed - is there any real value in suffering? I think there is.

All of this takes on larger meaning when we remember that Jesus paved the way in our suffering, both as an example of how to respond the right way (acknowledging the Father), but also as emotional support from someone who's been there. His suffering linked heaven to our humanity and if we really think about it, he had the most to lose. His earthly life, yes, but certainly his heavenly dignity. God-becomes-man-becomes-tortured - what a massive fall.

So there's value in Christ's example. But what about the more practical? One of the most common human traits of an immature soul is pride and shallowness of character. We think things are going well. We attribute it to our smarts, our hard work, or any other number of things tied to our great efforts. Then the wheels fall off. We experience pain and loss. Our brokenness crashes down with our poor choices, the words and actions of others around us, or perhaps we don't really know why.

When we respond correctly, suffering “keeps us honest”, as they say. It adds depth of character to our shallow soul. And an added bonus - it fosters true compassion for others. More depth of character as we remember to gaze outwards, even as it hurts so much. Because others are hurting too.

As I write this, I am in some personal turmoil. It’s common life-stuff but as suffering typically goes, it feels worse than it probably is. So this blog post is fresh and sincere. Here is what I am learning in real time (ME, are you listening?):

1. Don’t suffer alone, and on the other side, don’t ignore the sufferer! Yes, we all live “out west” but we’re not cowboys on some far lonely outpost. We NEED each other. We really do, as both a giver and receiver of compassion. Isolation is one of the enemy’s harshest and most powerful tools. It leads to wrong assumptions and beliefs, and wild exaggerations. And it’s horribly lonely. We need to reach out, and that includes professional or pastoral care.

2. Pain focuses us, and locks us in. Sometimes I feel God uses it to get our attention, and keep it for awhile while he speaks and we learn.

3. We can ask God why, but we shouldn't get stuck on the why. He wants to interact with us, and answers will be revealed as we walk with him, and keep walking. Don't stop and get stuck. If we fall, get back up.

4. Gain perspective and identify the gains. Perspective is one of suffering's great rewards.

5. We need to give the sufferer space but be sensitive and “nearby”, observing, praying, and ready to connect. Don’t worry about not having words. Smiles and hugs are essential too.

Romans 8:18
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

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About the Author

Terry is a man in constant motion to explore new horizons. He has a thirst for new places and faces, and a deep love for the natural world - with a weakness for waterfalls and sunsets. All of this venturing out helps to both ground and inspire him, because it opens him up to people, with their vast, collective array of experiences, outlooks and responses.

He finds all of this fascinating and sees that it has encouraged the growth of something crucial in his Christian development: empathy and compassion toward his brothers and sisters on this planet.