THE PARADOX OF SUFFERING

Neglect is the practice of turning away from the truth we quietly whisper to ourselves.

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We carved out an evening from the hard-formed sculptures of our needful lives and met on the river’s edge to talk about our dreams.

She has been in and out of my life for more than twenty years. Without obvious deliberation, a great force has orchestrated a life-long friendship that began in Seattle, meandering through years of losing touch, then seemingly randomly landing in the same cities during consequential seasons of our lives. This is one of those seasons.

I do not dismiss that the healer in her has come to bear witness to a chapter of my healing journey that has done its best to discourage me.

She sips her bubbly pink mocktail and asks me the question that has become a sort of code between us when we sense there’s something [not said] going on. “How’s your heart?” In defiance of superficiality,  this is the signal that we are about to go in deep.

I answer…

“I think I’ve decided my purpose is showing everyone just how great suffering can look.”

We burst out laughing, knowing that what makes the statement particularly funny is the truth of what was said. Just like that, I was brutally honest, or at least a part of me spoke up of which I wasn’t aware.

Suffering. Such a complex word. In context of the world, my experience feels so trivial. But I remind myself that pain is not a competition. The things we go through are not big…or small…but ours.

To compare our trials, even for a moment, disturbs the momentum of healing and revelation that has been set in motion as a singular lesson within our own personal destiny.

Some of us choose our suffering and in doing so we believe we can manipulate all of destiny’s power—

We suffer fools and endless days of same-old-thing routines.
We push. We strive. We angst over seemingly little things.

I used to say with pride, “I revere my ability to navigate difficult people.”

While it was true, it may come as no surprise that I became a magnet for the chronically suffering—not victims of hardship or life’s circumstances, but captives within their own heads.

I have not known the depth and breadth of great suffering. But I have become acquainted with a kind of slow-burn suffering that makes me aware of just how extraordinary the good moments are.

This paradox—a life lived between beautiful and hard—it keeps me forever grateful. And cultivates a kind of  compassion that can only come from the “going through.”

Did you know compassion means “to suffer together?” Suffering is cosmically not a solo endeavor. We were not created to go through the hard alone.

A friend once remarked,

 Ministry is others being blessed by the oil
that came from what crushed you. 

From. What. Crushed. You. I’ve asked you before, but it’s time I ask again—Is this where you feel you are now?

In everything I’ve encountered—every trip to the doctor, every procedure, every written word—I’ve received powerful confirmation that  our “suffering” no matter how large or small, is not only intended for our own transformation but for the transformation of those looking on.

Shall I not drink from the cup of suffering that my Father intended?

Can you just imagine what would have become of this Earth had the suffering-resistance of our character over-ruled?

Every seemingly small choice to circumvent suffering not only shifts the trajectory of our own purpose but [in ways unseen] changes the outcome of those who desperately need to see His grace embodied in you.

But the paradox of suffering doesn’t stop there—sometimes we use our suffering to capture what we’ve not been able to ask for in a healthy way—
We use our pain to retreat from the world,
discovering it’s the only way we know how to say “no,”
the only way to entitle ourselves to the time we need to recover and reconnect.
And we leverage our discomfort as an excuse to be short, blunt, angry, even bitter when the real cause is our inability to speak our truth.

I’m reminded of a song from my teenage years that still plays like a life-verse in my head:

Suffering is the only thing, that made me feel I was alive.
Thought that’s just how much it cost to survive in this world.

So much of our suffering is self-induced. Tell me, what unnecessary suffering are you going through?

“She was so long-suffering.” Is this what memory I want my story to induce? How long are you willing to suffer to get what you need?

When we hide from that still small voice that follows us everywhere we live a life of a fugitive—always seeking, always empty, always running from the truth.

We all go through things,
most, invisible.
the suffering incremental.
the enduring unending and often insurmountable.
But we are rebuildable, bendable, pliable.
And the best of us is never measured in this moment,
but in the collection of this one and the next.

Eastern religion organizes suffering in four universal truths:
Birth, aging, sickness, death.
I think that just about covers it.

In everything we experience there is a measure of suffering, sometimes an unnecessary reality we create that perpetually holds us back, sometimes a Divinely beautiful gift of transcedence and renewal.

There is rarely a time-marker for the moments in our lives that feel bigger than what we think we can handle. Life overwhelms us with its devastations and triumphs—
Some who read my story may have this impression that things [important, essential, worked-hard-for things] are being stripped away. They may imagine fingers grasping for darkness in the middle of the night. But I am anything but empty-handed.

From the outside looking in, life may feel like a disaster. But from the inside, cells are exploding and multiplying at the speed of light. And somewhere, in the sweet, juicy center of everything, the suffering is being released.

NOTES:

I’m going into practice. One that teaches others to become intimately aware of our own suffering. Is it sent to us to teach and transform? Or is it self-induced?

Can you imagine a conversation…a protocol…that invites you to explore what’s going on around you and within?

If you’d like to learn more about how Sanctuary Living is evolving to comprehensively transform the spaces that surround us and the one’s within reach out—us the Comment section on this website or email me at jkraft@sanctuaryliving.net. I would love to work with you.