Quotes about Suffering

As the Persian poet Rumi once wrote, 'Light enters at the place of the wound.

Are you capable of forgiving and loving God even when you have found out that He is not perfect, even when He has let you down and disappointed you by permitting bad luck and sickness and cruelty in His world, and permitting some of those things to happen to you? Can you learn to love and forgive Him despite His limitations, as Job does, and as you once learned to forgive and love your parents even though they were not as wise, as strong, or as perfect as you needed them to be?

In other words, Job is saying to God: If I am important enough for You to keep track of my every mistake and punish me for them, then am I not worth five minutes of Your time to tell me what I am being punished for? And if I am too insignificant to merit Your personal attention, then why am I important enough for You to measure out my punishment?

Suffering comes to ennoble man, to purge his thoughts of pride and superficiality, to expand his horizons. In sum, the purpose of suffering is to repair that which is faulty in a man's personality.

Wilder offers this as his explanation of why good people have to suffer in this life. God has a pattern into which all of our lives fit. His pattern requires that some lives be twisted, knotted, or cut short, while others extend to impressive lengths, not because one thread is more deserving than another, but simply because the pattern requires it.

If a human artist or employer made children suffer so that something immensely impressive or valuable could come to pass, we would put him in prison. Why then should we excuse God for causing such undeserved pain, no matter how wonderful the ultimate result may be?

My friends have forgotten me, My dependents and maidservants respond to me as a stranger. Summon my servant but he does not respond¦ My odor is repulsive to my wife, I am loathsome to my children.

Pain is the price we pay for being alive. Dead cells—our hair, our fingernails—can't feel pain; they cannot feel anything. When we understand that, our question will change from, "Why do we have to feel pain?" to "What do we do with our pain so that it becomes meaningful and not just pointless empty suffering?

God didn't let Job suffer because he lacked love, but because he did love, in order to bring Job to the point of encountering God face to face, which is humanity's supreme happiness. Job's suffering hollowed out a big space in him so that God and joy could fill it.

Archbishop Tutu once explained to me that suffering can either embitter us or ennoble us, and it tends to ennoble us if we are able to make meaning out of our suffering and use it for the benefit of others.

I think that is why—why God allows hard things in life. To prepare us. To knock off rough edges—pride, bias, envy, selfishness—so that when we get to heaven we will be more in tune—more able to enjoy the beautiful things we'll find there. Maybe that's what the rewards will be. A deeper appreciation of what we are given—what we are a part of.

I know that this world holds suffering— and hardship— and sometimes despair. But our God has a gift— a hope and a future for each of us. If only we accept the manner in which it comes: the surrender of our will to His— in faith and obedience.