Quotes about Suffering

Suffering creates the possibility of growth in, holiness, but only to those who, by letting all else go, are open to the training—not by arguing with the Lord about what they did or did not do to deserve punishment, but by praying, "Lord, show me what You have for me in this.

The word suffering is much too grand to apply to most of our troubles, but if we don't learn to refer the little things to God how shall we learn to refer the big ones? A definition which covers all sorts of trouble, great or small, is this: having what you don't want, or wanting what you don't have. The vicissitudes of travel furnish plenty of what Janet Erskine Stuart calls "blessed inconveniences," occasions which fit both categories in our definition.

In times of deepest suffering it is the faithful carrying out of ordinary duties that brings the greatest consolation.

Some day, even you will see that there's sense in this. Your suffering is never for nothing.

So if you get all hung up, thinking now is this thing from God or is it from Satan? Is this the voice of God or the voice of Satan? Stop worrying about it. You don't really need to sort that out because here's a case where the thorn was in a sense given by God as a messenger of Satan.

I say that I found peace. I do not say that I was not lonely. I was--terribly. I do not say that I did not grieve. I did--most sorely. But peace of that sort the world cannot give comes, not by the removal of suffering, but in another way--through acceptance.

He has promised that our suffering will one day turn into glory if we'll respond to it in faith and obedience.

But I can say that I know the One who knows. And I've come to see that it's through the deepest suffering that God has taught me the deepest lessons. And if we'll trust Him for it, we can come through to the unshakable assurance that He's in charge. He has a loving purpose. And He can transform something terrible into something wonderful. Suffering is never for nothing.

It was he who told her of the three inscriptions over the doors of the Milan Cathedral. One, with a carving of roses, says, "All that pleases is but for a moment"; another, with a carving of a cross, says, "All that grieves is but for a moment"; and over the great central door are only the words, "Nothing is important but that which is eternal.

There is no qualitative or quantitative measurement for pain. It is simply there--sharp or dull, shooting or stabbing, bearable or excruciating, local or general, it is unexplained, uninvited, unavoidable. It takes command. It is all-encompassing, implacable, exigent.

Well, that's what faith is about, isn't it? If you really believe that somebody loves you then you trust them. The will of God is love. And love suffers. That's how we know what

The real question we need to face is exactly what a Christian is supposed to do when terrible things happen. There are two choices, and only two: We can trust God or we can defy Him. We believe that God is God, He's still got the whole world in His hands and knows exactly what He's doing, or we must believe that He is not God and we are at the awful mercy of mere chance.