Shaped by Suffering

When life comes at us hard, we have a couple of choices. We can lean into it and seek to grow and learn and allow it to forge us into something more than we were before. Or we can resist and try to run away from the difficulties. The problem with the second option is that it doesn’t work. The issue with the first, is that it can be really hard!

Obviously, we can apply this to the current situation with the coronavirus running rampant through our world, but we can just as easily apply it to numerous other difficulties we face, large and less so. We all know, at some level, that difficulties and suffering offer tremendous opportunities for growth. We know it…we just don’t like it. And so we resist and run away from the difficult stuff. Or we try to diminish it and make it somehow less real than it is, because if it is not real, we don’t have to deal with it.

We think that we should be immune from the struggle. That we are somehow entitled to a pass on this one. Or that it is not real and therefore has no effect on us. But suffering is universal. It is part of the experience of being human. Maybe the suffering is not the real problem. Maybe the problem is more in our response.

Eckhart Tolle said, “The ego says, ‘I shouldn’t have to suffer,’ and that thought makes you suffer so much more. It is a distortion of the truth, which is always paradoxical. The truth is that you need to say yes to suffering before you can transcend it.”

In Romans 5, we read, “We also have joy with our troubles, because we know that these troubles produce patience. And patience produces character, and character produces hope. And this hope will never disappoint us, because God has poured out his love to fill our hearts.” Romans 5:3-5a (NCV)

We can never completely avoid difficulty, and sometimes it is tragic. We are human, therefore we will struggle. But we don’t have to be defeated by troubles. In fact, we are told that it is those very struggles that can shape us into the people we can be.

That is my hope and prayer as we go through this time, that we can be shaped by this dark time into people who bring light. That we can move from fear to faith, from anger to empathy. That we can embrace kindness and compassion and community. That is how we redeem the struggle. We don’t let it beat us, we allow it to reshape us into something more beautiful.

It is a choice, and one that is best made together. And it is a choice that we will have to make each day. But I believe it is worth the effort because the possibilities that lie on the other side might be more than we could imagine.