Last year I was heavily wrestling with the idea of grief and suffering — two types of pain that I am no stranger to.
Although God has restored, healed, and lifted me out of the depths of the pit of despair I was in, the concept of Christians enduring suffering has always evoked a curiosity in me to find its meaning.
I’ll be honest, for most of 2021, I endured overwhelming bouts of grief and suffering. Everything in my life was rapidly changing, and it seemed as though God was stripping me of everything I knew and loved. And whenever I experienced a loss, the suffering was awaiting me around the corner.
And as a curious Christian in search for the meaning of my pain, I immersed myself into books, “encouraging” sermons, and devotionals about suffering, but I quickly began to notice a trend…
Every teaching taught 1 of 3 things:
1. God is allowing you to suffer because He is punishing you!
2. God is allowing you to suffer because He is preparing you!
3. God is allowing you to suffer because He is refining you!
“Awww, how encouraging”, I thought… NOT!
None of it, and I mean absolutely none of it was encouraging to me. These teachings actually left me doubting and questioning the goodness of God.
It seemed as though the church’s responses to suffering was to bypass the actual experience of suffering and exalt the characteristics that suffering produces!
The church was actually over-glorifying suffering.
But finding meaning in my sufferings was a priority to me… I thought, how does one heal without understanding?
So I carried on.
I began to read the Book of Job (i.e. the man in the Bible who was notoriously known for grief and suffering worse than anyone).
Although the Bible describes Job as a righteous man, in the midst of his pain, his friends even tried to make meaning of his suffering.
“Surely God is punishing you!” They said.
Or
“Surely you must have done something to bring this upon yourself!” They reasoned.
Job’s wife even insisted that he should curse God for the things God allowed him to endure.
But Job was righteous and refused. Job even tried to ask God why he had to suffer, but God never gave Him a direct answer. Job never got a reason. Then God eventually restored Job and gave him DOUBLE of what he lost. Job received a double portion and double blessings for his endurance and faithfulness.
Although I was comforted by Job’s story, I still spent hours in prayer and pondered the events that had just unraveled in my life. I wrestled with why God in all of his goodness would allow such devastating trials to happen to me.
Until one day, my therapist said something that changed my life… She said, “Tori, you’re always trying to find meaning in your suffering. What if your suffering just IS.”
I froze in my seat. “What if my suffering just is,”I pondered.
That was the answer I had been searching for.
That was exactly what I needed to hear.
If God allowed Jesus to suffer while here on earth and bear the ultimate sacrifice on the cross, then why would we be exempt from suffering?
The Bible doesn’t promise Christians a life free of suffering. It actually says the opposite — suffering is inevitable while here on earth.
In John 16:33 Jesus says, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
…
Sisters, if you’re comforting a person that has endured trauma or experienced many grievances in their life, we must know that that the typical theology surrounding suffering is not always helpful.
The theology that says: it is good to suffer, it produces perseverance and Godly character, can be brash for the listener, in the moment.
Although Paul’s theology has its place, most of the time the sufferer simply needs to hear…
“I am so sorry that happened to you.”
Or
“What do you need in this moment?”
Or
“How can I help you through this?”
Sometimes, the power of presence is more comforting than the words we speak. Sometimes finding meaning in suffering is more harmful than helpful. Sometimes suffering just IS.
And like Job, we should be content in not always knowing why we have to suffer.
We should be content in knowing that God’s ways our higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our own thoughts.
We should be content in knowing that ALL things, including suffering, is working for our good.
XOXO,
Tori
A WORD hunny 🙌🏾. This helped me to process my own past sufferings & also to recognize the most effective position to take with someone who i may be supporting in their suffering. It is so important not to trivialize suffering or to try to find a “reason” for the suffering just to make that person feel better, but instead to pray with them & be there for them. So good!