Spirituality and Suffering

Darryl Lang led the group in a conversation about spirituality and the dimension of suffering a couple of weeks ago. He began with a devastating quote from a woman who had experienced horrific suffering in her young life:

“I grew up in an abusive household….I mean that my father raped my while reciting the Lord’s Prayer. I mean that my father molested me while singing Christian hymns. My father prayed with me every night…He lay on top of me, touched my breasts, and prayed that I would be forgiven. ‘Father,’ he said. I cringed at the association. ‘Heavenly Father, make my daughter a better person.’ I lay underneath him and trembled. I closed my eyes, as much to avoid his face as to pray properly. I made promises to stop disappointing him, to stop disappointing God. I would have done anything to feel clean, feel loved, to have been good.”
~ Renee Altson from
Stumbling Toward Faith: My Longing to Heal from the Evil that God Allowed

How do we begin to process this kind of pain?
Disturbing questions flood our souls:

• Where was God in all of this?
• How do we view a God who allows such appalling suffering?
• How do we act for justice in the midst of this nightmare?
• What would we say to Renee if we knew her?
• How do we pray for her?
• How do we deal with our own emotions like rage, revulsion, pity and sadness?
  

Suffering is with us all; there is no avoiding it. At any given time in a community like ours,
someone is experiencing searing pain: abuse, illness, job loss, broken relationships and any number of other tragedies

If we, personally, aren’t experiencing these now, we will experience them in some form soon; it is inevitable that we will face suffering in our lives.

Perhaps our prayer-conversation with God can take many different directions:

• A legitimate cry for the alleviation of pain
• Wisdom to know how to help someone going through trials
• What response our thoughts and emotions should have in situations like this

But maybe, one of our prayers might be to see the bigger picture that the New Testament writers shared in their longing to understand and experience the sufferings of Christ…

"There is no escaping the cross [of suffering]. Either you will experience physical hardship or tribulation of spirit in your soul. At times you will be forsaken by God, at times troubled by those about you and, what is worse, you will often grow weary of yourself. You cannot escape; you cannot be relieved by any remedy or comfort but must bear with it as long as God wills. For he whishes you to learn to bear trial without consolation, to submit yourself wholly to him that you may become more humble through suffering."
~ Thomas a Kempis

A personal look at suffering

• A short testimony of loss from Darryl and Pam
• What is it about suffering that forces us to focus on central issues of life?Tim Stafford (Christian writer) points out that suffering is one of the loneliest experiences; it is also one of the most purifying. Why? Here’s his quote from Knowing the Face of God:”Suffering purifies this human material, cutting away layer after soft layer until only firmer stuff remains. All the dross goes: the ambitions, love of money, vanity about appearance, everything that sets us above others in our own mind. Suffering purges everything that is not central to life.”

How is it that suffering is one of the loneliest experiences and yet unites us with other people?

Also, suffering teaches us the absolute limit to our abilities and our total dependence upon Christ. It unites us with others going through similar circumstances. That might be the key — not an “answer” to suffering, but humility and grace in the midst of it.

• Suffering in whatever form it takes, personal, communal, national, is a great mystery. The Bible does not provide a running commentary on why “this happened here” or “this occurred there.”
• The New Testament writers never agonized with Job-like questions about suffering; they assumed they would suffer as disciples of Christ.

“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.” ~ Philippians 1:29 [NIV]

“But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” ~ I Peter 2:20, 21 [NIV]

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” ~ II Corinthians 4:7-10 [NIV]

Eucharist and Suffering

As Christ showed us by example with the bread at the Last Supper,
we were Chosen, Blessed, Broken in Suffering and Given.

~ Concept taken from Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved