What Is Christian Suffering?

What Is Christian Suffering?

We begin by looking at what may seem plain enough on the surface, but is not as plain as many people think, namely, just what is suffering? If there is one thing that everybody experiences but few people define, it is suffering. As commonly understood suffering means the experience of pain. It may be due to a variety of causes. Every organ of the human body, every limb and joint, in fact, every cell is capable of greater or less, and at times, excruciating pain.

So great is the horror of bodily pain that annually billions of dollars in our country are spent by those who can afford it to avoid pain or lessen it. And every drugstore is a symbol of man's dread of pain and his desire to be relieved of bodily suffering. But there is pain not only in the body. It is not just our body that suffers, it is we. There is pain in the human soul. To be rejected by those we love is pain. To be misunderstood and worse still to be misrepresented is pain.

To be passed over when others are chosen or ignored when others are recognized and praised, or forgotten when others are remembered, is pain. To have strong desires, noble desires like union with God and a sense of His nearness, and not have these desires fulfilled, as the mystics tell us, is great pain. To make mistakes and as a consequence be embarrassed, or to do wrong, then have to live with the memory of our sins, is pain. So the litany of pain goes on and its experience is suffering.

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