Quotes about Suffering

Such is life, such the mysterious dispensations of providence. All of us have our little crosses, and every man, as the apostle so justly remarked, shall bear his own burden.

The wound is mortal and is mine.

The choice of self-abandonment in suffering makes possible the reception of grace - grace on the spiritual level, in the form of an accession of the love and knowledge of God, and grace in the mental and physiological levels, in the form of a diminution of fear, self-concern and even of pain.

The truth is, of course, that we are all organically related to God, to Nature and to our fellow-men. If every human being were constantly and consciously in a proper relationship with his divine, natural and social environments there would be only so much suffering as Creation makes inevitable.

Still, if one has to suffer in order to be beautiful, one must also expect to be ugly in order not to suffer.

As recently as a week ago, in the Director's office, he had imagined himself courageously resisting, stoically accepting suffering without a word. The Director's threats had actually elated him, made him feel larger than life.

Life in community with broken people will always include such disappointments. But they can be met with resilience, and with a faith in the eternal significance of a life lived with the suffering. Such a life will never be easy or tidy; the work is endless and will always stretch on before us.

When I think of the human suffering, the terrible amount of energy needed to move even infinitesimally toward a more decent life I am amazed at human patience.

We cannot count on God to arrange what happens in our lives in ways that will make us feel good.We can, however, count on God to patiently remove all the obstacles to our enjoyment of Him. He is committed to our joy, and we can depend on Him to give us enough of a taste of that joy and enough hope that the best is still ahead to keep us going in spite of how much pain continues to plague our hearts.

He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

And this filmmaker has the most extraordinary epiphany! He realizes that there is as much merit in trying to ease people's suffering for a moment as there is in "focusing" on it. To ease someone's pain through a distracting, silly, joyous laugh is his lesson. I know there is suffering, so to escape it for a second is truly powerful. That is one church I am staying loyal to. The Church of Laughing.

Our trials are supposed to turn us toward God, but we whine and complain and wish someone would turn down the fire so we could have our old life back the way it was.