As I get older, and accumulate more suffering, I find the Christian explanations to suffering more and more demeaning and horrible. It is easy to come up with theories when doing well and getting a lot of accolades which preaching from a pulpit. Some theories may even help those who go through terrible times with a lot of real support from fellow Christians, and then can claim victory as things get better. But when I look at most of the suffering in the world, be it in war torn areas, or tragedies closer to me, or my own (untreatable medical conditions mostly caused by wrong diagnosis decades ago, unfathomable emotional suffering mostly caused by Christian family members out of pure greed and supported by their Christian church, plus too many additional losses), all these explanations for suffering and attempts to find positive things in it and twist them into a blessing just fall apart, and the contradictions become too big. Yes, we can learn to not totally to despair and to try to live on, one day at a time. But there is no explanation for the suffering that holds up. Suffering is probably the biggest unsolved problem in our Christian faith. To deny that and just trampling on those already down does not change that, though it may give good feelings to those doing well. Suffering is simply a horrific tragedy. Thanks for your article on it!
By the way: One of the worst effects of the typical Christian explanations of suffering is that it absolves Christians of actually doing all they can to relieve and avoid suffering. There is no need to take a stand against the current war in the middle east (oh - it is God's will anyway, bad luck for those whose lives are destroyed forever), or by coming along people around us who are suffering (here are some explanations and tips - now I am busy with my own life). I know there are exceptions to it, but when looking at the gospels, relieving suffering should be our fundamental life style in every decision and not just an add-on from time to time.
Dorothea, thank you for this comment, and I completely get that.
I agree that Christians have sometimes been too quick to explain suffering instead of sitting alongside those who are suffering. When Jesus encountered pain, he so often responded first with compassion before offering any explanation. He wept, he healed, he fed, he comforted.
My hope with this article wasn't to solve the problem of suffering; I don't think any of us can, but to acknowledge that Scripture itself refuses easy answers. Books like Job, Lamentations and many of the Psalms leave room for protest, grief and unanswered questions.
I also very much agree with your final point. If our theology ever makes us less compassionate or less willing to relieve suffering wherever we find it, then something has gone badly wrong. Thank you again for adding such an honest and important perspective to the discussion.
And we are not alone “For all creation is waiting eagerly” for the next step. “For we know all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan…” I have to wonder if creation would function as it does with earthquakes and storms if sin had not entered the world. I believe those would not exist.
God never wanted pain, suffering and a broken creation, but he uses it in ways we can’t understand for His perfect purpose.
The more scientists discover about life on earth the more precarious any life here appears at all. Physics also indicates more and more that the universe is a complex creation out of nothing. Our true being is spiritual not physical.
We will never fully understand creation and how God’s plan is being cared out. The hardest is to see children with deformities and diseases that are long term. Yet what amazes me is how often they are the ones most comfortable in their situation. They are often happier than kids with every advantage. The same goes for people who are poor. I believe God is in their situation with them more than we understand.
The most growth I ever experienced as a believer happened when my wife and I had cancer within a year of each other. It was also the time I felt the most peace. Far more than I feel today. I believe God was there.
Thank you, Daryl. I really appreciated your final sentence: "No answers, just thoughts." I think that captures the spirit in which we need to approach this subject.
I was also moved by what you shared about you and your wife, both facing cancer. I'm so sorry you both had to walk through that. It is striking that you describe it as both a time of profound suffering and of profound peace. I've heard similar reflections from others, and it reminds me that while suffering doesn't necessarily come with explanations, many people do speak of God's presence becoming especially real in the darkest seasons.
I also love your reference to creation groaning in Romans 8. It is such a powerful image because it acknowledges that the brokenness we experience is not just individual but cosmic, while still holding on to hope that it is not the final word.
Thank you for adding this perspective to the conversation.
You wrote, "Perhaps our outrage at suffering is exactly as it should be." I believe that is how Jesus felt. We do not know how he spent the years between his childhood in Egypt and the beginning of his public ministry at the wedding at Cana, where Mary apparently pushed him prematurely into that ministry (one of those "hidden" moments you spot so sharply). I think he must have spent those years the way I fell into my healing ministry, empathizing, suffering along with others, trying various ways of praying and treating people's illnesses, finding out what did and did not work, and perfecting his moment-to-moment awareness of God's leading.
I try to write about some of my experiences along that road that began when I was a tiny child aware of other people's joy and sorrow and the extra energy I had to bring to increase their joy, sometimes. I was immersed in love, in Christian teaching by devoted followers of Jesus, and I was exposed to the pain of loss before I understood what that meant. My parents lost their first, premature baby that may also have had something to do with a nurse clamping my mother's knees together to get a stretcher through a doorway while she was giving birth. When my own daughter was in process of arriving, I screamed at a nurse who tried to do the same thing to me. That "folklore" probably saved my baby's life. My life is a densely woven fabric of such bits and pieces of useful learning. I am sure Jesus was taught in similar ways.
By the time I was in my mid-twenties and receiving new power in the Holy Spirit, that fascination I had with human behaviour was developing more specific questions about medical failures and spiritual answers of many kinds. By the example of Jesus' life and teaching and by his prophetic word that "those who came after me will do greater things than I do," I think we are expected to answer those burning questions and solve problems. I have done that. But the next problem is much harder: getting that information about healing to a world that is seeking help from the wrong direction. Not that doctors can never help. But the motto of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto defines priorities: Medicus servit, servat Deus, which is Latin for "The doctor serves, God saves." The profound difference between "best practice" in medicine and actual fullness of health is where the Christian followers of Jesus are called to intervene.
The history of medical practice is founded on ordinary, outraged people who pay close attention to suffering and can put two and two together while they are listening to God. Jesus came so that we might have more abundant life!
Thank you, Laurna. I was especially struck by your opening thought. I think the Gospels consistently present Jesus as someone who refuses to remain distant from human suffering. Before we ever see him perform miracles, we see him moved by compassion, grieving, weeping, and entering into people's pain. That gives me hope because it suggests God is not indifferent to our outrage at suffering but shares it. Thank you, too, for sharing so much of your own journey. It clearly comes from a lifetime of paying close attention to both suffering and hope.
Absolutely. But I am also saying that when our daughter appeared to be dying and we were told our conditions (three of us had "long-COVID" but she was by far the sickest) were incurable, God spoke to me, "This sickness is not unto death." As Jesus observed of the 12-year-old girl everyone thought was dead. That Word kept me seeking, thinking, praying, experimenting. That is what I mean by God intervening for the Christian. Of course, that is not the only way God can intervene. He did not tell me that the man I thought I would marry was going to be healed. He told me, "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it cannot spring to eternal life." Within a few weeks, Michael had died.
The answer to our chronic fatigue, very largely, came when I took our dyslexic son to Toronto for a Tomatis Music Therapy that happened also to heal me. Later, that therapy healed our daughter. And a home-version of the therapy helped but did not entirely cure my husband. The problem in his case, I came to think much later, was that the Tomatis Method was binaural and he needed a right-ear therapy, even though he had underlying mild depression unrelated to his chronic fatigue.
The same problem of the binaural Tomatis treatment applied to our son, who rapidly lost his spectacular dyslexia healing and became schizophrenic. It took me another 10 years of seeking through many blind alleys, prayer, and study to discover the right-eared therapy that healed not only his schizophrenia but a string of other "mental" illnesses that all improve more effectively if only the right ear is stimulated. Tomatis thought the right ear was more important, but he stuck to a binaural therapy. By testing that concept, I struck gold.
Thank you, Laurna. I really appreciate you sharing so much of your family's story. It speaks to years of perseverance, prayer, and a refusal to give up hope, even in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
What stands out to me is your determination to keep seeking answers rather than surrendering to despair. Whatever conclusions people reach about particular treatments or experiences, the willingness to keep loving, praying, thinking and searching for ways to relieve suffering reflects something deeply Christian. Jesus consistently met suffering with compassion, and I think his followers are called to do the same.
Thank you again for contributing so thoughtfully to this conversation. It has added another valuable perspective to the discussion.
As I get older, and accumulate more suffering, I find the Christian explanations to suffering more and more demeaning and horrible. It is easy to come up with theories when doing well and getting a lot of accolades which preaching from a pulpit. Some theories may even help those who go through terrible times with a lot of real support from fellow Christians, and then can claim victory as things get better. But when I look at most of the suffering in the world, be it in war torn areas, or tragedies closer to me, or my own (untreatable medical conditions mostly caused by wrong diagnosis decades ago, unfathomable emotional suffering mostly caused by Christian family members out of pure greed and supported by their Christian church, plus too many additional losses), all these explanations for suffering and attempts to find positive things in it and twist them into a blessing just fall apart, and the contradictions become too big. Yes, we can learn to not totally to despair and to try to live on, one day at a time. But there is no explanation for the suffering that holds up. Suffering is probably the biggest unsolved problem in our Christian faith. To deny that and just trampling on those already down does not change that, though it may give good feelings to those doing well. Suffering is simply a horrific tragedy. Thanks for your article on it!
By the way: One of the worst effects of the typical Christian explanations of suffering is that it absolves Christians of actually doing all they can to relieve and avoid suffering. There is no need to take a stand against the current war in the middle east (oh - it is God's will anyway, bad luck for those whose lives are destroyed forever), or by coming along people around us who are suffering (here are some explanations and tips - now I am busy with my own life). I know there are exceptions to it, but when looking at the gospels, relieving suffering should be our fundamental life style in every decision and not just an add-on from time to time.
Dorothea, thank you for this comment, and I completely get that.
I agree that Christians have sometimes been too quick to explain suffering instead of sitting alongside those who are suffering. When Jesus encountered pain, he so often responded first with compassion before offering any explanation. He wept, he healed, he fed, he comforted.
My hope with this article wasn't to solve the problem of suffering; I don't think any of us can, but to acknowledge that Scripture itself refuses easy answers. Books like Job, Lamentations and many of the Psalms leave room for protest, grief and unanswered questions.
I also very much agree with your final point. If our theology ever makes us less compassionate or less willing to relieve suffering wherever we find it, then something has gone badly wrong. Thank you again for adding such an honest and important perspective to the discussion.
And we are not alone “For all creation is waiting eagerly” for the next step. “For we know all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan…” I have to wonder if creation would function as it does with earthquakes and storms if sin had not entered the world. I believe those would not exist.
God never wanted pain, suffering and a broken creation, but he uses it in ways we can’t understand for His perfect purpose.
The more scientists discover about life on earth the more precarious any life here appears at all. Physics also indicates more and more that the universe is a complex creation out of nothing. Our true being is spiritual not physical.
We will never fully understand creation and how God’s plan is being cared out. The hardest is to see children with deformities and diseases that are long term. Yet what amazes me is how often they are the ones most comfortable in their situation. They are often happier than kids with every advantage. The same goes for people who are poor. I believe God is in their situation with them more than we understand.
The most growth I ever experienced as a believer happened when my wife and I had cancer within a year of each other. It was also the time I felt the most peace. Far more than I feel today. I believe God was there.
No answers just thoughts.
Thank you, Daryl. I really appreciated your final sentence: "No answers, just thoughts." I think that captures the spirit in which we need to approach this subject.
I was also moved by what you shared about you and your wife, both facing cancer. I'm so sorry you both had to walk through that. It is striking that you describe it as both a time of profound suffering and of profound peace. I've heard similar reflections from others, and it reminds me that while suffering doesn't necessarily come with explanations, many people do speak of God's presence becoming especially real in the darkest seasons.
I also love your reference to creation groaning in Romans 8. It is such a powerful image because it acknowledges that the brokenness we experience is not just individual but cosmic, while still holding on to hope that it is not the final word.
Thank you for adding this perspective to the conversation.
You wrote, "Perhaps our outrage at suffering is exactly as it should be." I believe that is how Jesus felt. We do not know how he spent the years between his childhood in Egypt and the beginning of his public ministry at the wedding at Cana, where Mary apparently pushed him prematurely into that ministry (one of those "hidden" moments you spot so sharply). I think he must have spent those years the way I fell into my healing ministry, empathizing, suffering along with others, trying various ways of praying and treating people's illnesses, finding out what did and did not work, and perfecting his moment-to-moment awareness of God's leading.
I try to write about some of my experiences along that road that began when I was a tiny child aware of other people's joy and sorrow and the extra energy I had to bring to increase their joy, sometimes. I was immersed in love, in Christian teaching by devoted followers of Jesus, and I was exposed to the pain of loss before I understood what that meant. My parents lost their first, premature baby that may also have had something to do with a nurse clamping my mother's knees together to get a stretcher through a doorway while she was giving birth. When my own daughter was in process of arriving, I screamed at a nurse who tried to do the same thing to me. That "folklore" probably saved my baby's life. My life is a densely woven fabric of such bits and pieces of useful learning. I am sure Jesus was taught in similar ways.
By the time I was in my mid-twenties and receiving new power in the Holy Spirit, that fascination I had with human behaviour was developing more specific questions about medical failures and spiritual answers of many kinds. By the example of Jesus' life and teaching and by his prophetic word that "those who came after me will do greater things than I do," I think we are expected to answer those burning questions and solve problems. I have done that. But the next problem is much harder: getting that information about healing to a world that is seeking help from the wrong direction. Not that doctors can never help. But the motto of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto defines priorities: Medicus servit, servat Deus, which is Latin for "The doctor serves, God saves." The profound difference between "best practice" in medicine and actual fullness of health is where the Christian followers of Jesus are called to intervene.
The history of medical practice is founded on ordinary, outraged people who pay close attention to suffering and can put two and two together while they are listening to God. Jesus came so that we might have more abundant life!
Thank you, Laurna. I was especially struck by your opening thought. I think the Gospels consistently present Jesus as someone who refuses to remain distant from human suffering. Before we ever see him perform miracles, we see him moved by compassion, grieving, weeping, and entering into people's pain. That gives me hope because it suggests God is not indifferent to our outrage at suffering but shares it. Thank you, too, for sharing so much of your own journey. It clearly comes from a lifetime of paying close attention to both suffering and hope.
Absolutely. But I am also saying that when our daughter appeared to be dying and we were told our conditions (three of us had "long-COVID" but she was by far the sickest) were incurable, God spoke to me, "This sickness is not unto death." As Jesus observed of the 12-year-old girl everyone thought was dead. That Word kept me seeking, thinking, praying, experimenting. That is what I mean by God intervening for the Christian. Of course, that is not the only way God can intervene. He did not tell me that the man I thought I would marry was going to be healed. He told me, "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it cannot spring to eternal life." Within a few weeks, Michael had died.
The answer to our chronic fatigue, very largely, came when I took our dyslexic son to Toronto for a Tomatis Music Therapy that happened also to heal me. Later, that therapy healed our daughter. And a home-version of the therapy helped but did not entirely cure my husband. The problem in his case, I came to think much later, was that the Tomatis Method was binaural and he needed a right-ear therapy, even though he had underlying mild depression unrelated to his chronic fatigue.
The same problem of the binaural Tomatis treatment applied to our son, who rapidly lost his spectacular dyslexia healing and became schizophrenic. It took me another 10 years of seeking through many blind alleys, prayer, and study to discover the right-eared therapy that healed not only his schizophrenia but a string of other "mental" illnesses that all improve more effectively if only the right ear is stimulated. Tomatis thought the right ear was more important, but he stuck to a binaural therapy. By testing that concept, I struck gold.
Thank you, Laurna. I really appreciate you sharing so much of your family's story. It speaks to years of perseverance, prayer, and a refusal to give up hope, even in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
What stands out to me is your determination to keep seeking answers rather than surrendering to despair. Whatever conclusions people reach about particular treatments or experiences, the willingness to keep loving, praying, thinking and searching for ways to relieve suffering reflects something deeply Christian. Jesus consistently met suffering with compassion, and I think his followers are called to do the same.
Thank you again for contributing so thoughtfully to this conversation. It has added another valuable perspective to the discussion.