Quotes about Suffering

Now I begin to be a disciple... Let fire and cross, flocks of beasts, broken bones, dismemberment... come upon me, so long as I attain to Jesus Christ.

God does not waste an ounce of our pain or a drop of our tears; suffering doesn't come our way for no reason, and He seems efficient at using what we endure to mold character. If we are malleable, He takes our bumps and bruises and shapes them into something beautiful.

God's idea of ministry training is a broken vessel. His idea of spiritual preparation is suffering, which includes rejection.

The Lord has a unique way of preparing His servants for His work. It's one that involves transformation. And transformation always involves emptying, suffering, and loss. Humanity's way is to hand you a method. Divinity's way is to hand you a cross.

I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen 200 limping, exhausted men come out of line—the survivors of a regiment of 1,000 that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.

Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.

We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don't function as were meant to be. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache … The absence of love and belonging will always lead to suffering.

What makes a genius? The ability to see. To see what? The butterfly in a caterpillar, the eagle in an egg, the saint in a selfish person, life in death, unity in separation, God in the human and human in God and suffering as the form in which the incomprehensibility of God himself appears.

The unwounded life bears no resemblance to the Rabbi.

Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement, and death will be part of your journey, but the Kingdom of God will conquer all these horrors. No evil can resist grace forever. If you reject the ragamuffin gospel and turn your back on Christianity, do so because you find the answers of Jesus incredible, blasphemous, or hopelessly hopeful.

Anyone God uses significantly is always deeply wounded.

One of life's greatest paradoxes is that it's in the crucible of pain and suffering that we become tender.