Quotes about Suffering

As C. S. Lewis famously said, 'God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: [evil] is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

Pain and suffering are frequently the means by which we become motivated to finally surrender to God and to seek the cure of Christ.

I believe all suffering contains at least the opportunity for good," came his response, "but not everyone actualizes that potential. Not all of us learn and benefit from suffering; that's where free will comes in. One prisoner in a concentration camp will react quite differently from another, because of the choice each one makes to respond to the environment.

At the time of the crucifixion, the disciples couldn't see how anything good could result; similarly, as we face struggles and trials and suffering, we sometimes can't imagine good emerging. But we've seen how it did in the case of Jesus, and we can trust it will in our case too. For instance, the greatest Christians in history seem to say that their sufferings ended up bringing them the closest to God—so this is the best thing that could happen, not the worst.

it's at least possible that God is wise enough to foresee that we need some pain for reasons which we may not understand but which he foresees as being necessary to some eventual good. Therefore, he's not being evil by allowing that pain to exist.

moral character gets formed through hardship, through overcoming obstacles, through enduring despite difficulties. Courage, for example, would be impossible in a world without pain. The apostle Paul testified to this refining quality of suffering when he wrote that 'suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.'13

The point of our lives in this world isn't comfort, but training and preparation for eternity. Scripture tells us that even Jesus 'learned obedience through suffering14—and if that was true for him, why wouldn't it be even more true for us?

We live in a broken world; Jesus was honest enough to tell us we'd have trials and tribulations. Sure, I'd like to understand more about why. But Kreeft's conclusion was right--the ultimate answer is Jesus' presence. That sounds sappy, I know. But just wait--when your world is rocked, you don't want philosophy or theology as much as you want the reality of Christ. He was the answer for me. He was the very answer we needed.

Until that moment, I only saw Jesus as the Son of God. I knew he had come down to earth, but that night for the first time it dawned on me: He understands me. He walked in my shoes! As a matter of fact, he was sort of a toogee. You know? His daddy — his earthly father — wasn't his real daddy. He slept in the straw as a child. He was ridiculed and abused. They chased him and tried to kill him.

One writer referred to the problem of pain as "the question mark turned like a fishhook in the human heart.

there's a cartoon of two turtles. One says, 'Sometimes I'd like to ask why he allows poverty, famine, and injustice when he could do something about it.' The other turtle says, 'I'm afraid God might ask me the same question.' Those

Vincit qui patitur [he who suffers conquers].