Quotes about Suffering

No wonder Chelsea's memory had become her greatest weapon, a sword she wielded, wounding others to protect herself. For decades she had waged this war, but at what cost? Now she stood alone on the battlefield, bleeding and bruised. There were no victors in this war, and Chelsea counted herself among the casualties.

In God's hands intended evil becomes eventual good.

I keep thinking of all the people who cast despairing eyes toward the dark heavens and cry "Why?" And I imagine him. I imagine him listening. I picture his eyes misting and a pierced hand brushing away a tear. And although he may offer no answer, although he may solve no dilemma, although the question may freeze painfully in midair, he who also was once alone, understands.

Nothing in his story glosses over the presence of evil. Quite the contrary. Bloodstains, tearstains are everywhere. Joseph's heart was rubbed raw against the rocks of disloyalty and miscarried justice. Yet time and time again God redeemed the pain. The torn robe became a royal one. The pit became a palace. The broken family grew old together. The very acts intended to destroy God's servant turned out to strengthen him.

To see the despair without the grace is suicidal. To see the grace without the despair is upper room futility. But to see them both is conversion.

If we endure, we shall also reign with Him" (2 Timothy 2:12 NKJV).

Just look what they did to me!" we defy and point to our hurts. "Just look what I did for you," he reminds and points to the cross.

Isn't it enough that these hands will be pierced in the morning? Must they scrub grime tonight? And the disciples . . . do they deserve to have their feet washed?

A season of suffering is a small assignment when compared to the reward.

The fruit of sin is thorns—spiny, prickly, cutting thorns. I emphasize the "point" of the thorns to suggest a point you may have never considered: if the fruit of sin is thorns, isn't the thorny crown on Christ's brow a picture of the fruit of our sin that pierced his heart?

We long for the call to come home. But until He calls, we wait.... And how do we wait? With patient eagerness. (See rom. 8:25,23) Patient eagerness. Not so eager as to lose our patience, and not so patient as to lose our eagerness. ...we grow so patient we sleep!... ... Or we are so eager we demand. We demand in this world what only the next world can give. No sickness. No suffering. No struggle.

You can't see the warden. You can't see the locks. But you can see the prisoners. You can see them as they sit on their bunks and bemoan their fate. They want to live, but they can't because they are doomed to do what they most want to avoid—they will die. Imagine Jesus seeing us in our "prisons" of fear: