Suffering sucks. There’s no way around that little fact. War, poverty, injustice, natural disasters, little girls in the ICU. I remember when it was my mom in the ICU – numerous times. I would just sit there and look at her, look up at the monitors and machines she was hooked up to, look back at her and think …. Why? Why her? Why now? And as the suffering continued and continued I’d look up at the sky and say “Enough already.”
Why? It’s a logical question, but it’s a maddening question because there is no answer. Suffering just is. And for the spiritual person the why is dangerous, because it leads you to asking a certain deity why. Why would you do this to me? Why are you punishing us? My God my God why have you forsaken me?
Which takes me to the point that helps me, if anything does, deal with the reality of suffering. Yes suffering sucks, but it also is what it is. And Jesus knows that, he knows what human suffering feels like. God is in with us in the suffering. God strengthens us and inspires us and guides us to deal with our own suffering and to do what we can do to help lessen the suffering of others. So that maybe suffering will suck just a little less.
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