Quotes about Suffering

Fear is the universal primal response to suffering. And yet beyond doubt it is also the single greatest "enemy of recovery.

The sufferings of Jesus show us that pain comes to us not as punishment but rather as a testing ground for faith that transcends pain. In truth, pain redeemed impresses me more than pain removed.

What counts is the way a person reacts in the face of suffering. That is the real test of the person: What is our personal attitude to life and its changes and chances?

In a sense, Job must replay the original test of the garden of Eden, with the bar raised higher. Living in paradise, Adam and Eve faced a best-case scenario for trusting God, who asked so little of them and showered down blessings. In a living hell, Job faces the worst-case scenario: God asks so much, while curses rain down on him.

Knowledge is passive, intellectual; suffering is active, personal. No intellectual answer will solve suffering. Perhaps this is why God sent his own Son as one response to human pain, to experience it and absorb it into himself.

Think too of all who suffer as if you shared their pain. HEBREWS 13:3

Those who suffer rest their security not on things, which often cannot be enjoyed and may soon be taken away, but rather on people.

Those who suffer can respond to the call of the gospel with a certain abandonment and uncomplicated totality because they have so little to lose and are ready for anything.

One of the most important things we can do for a suffering person is to restore a sense of meaning or significance to the experience.

The first step in helping a suffering person (or in accepting our own pain) is to acknowledge that pain is valid, and worthy of a sympathetic response.

Faith like Job's cannot be shaken because it is the result of having been shaken.

God weeps with us so that we may one day laugh with him.