The Nature of Suffering

All people in life experience some form of suffering. The form and intensity will vary greatly, but all will experience it. This mortal experience is rife with examples of cruelty, disaster, and tragedy of all sorts. For those who believe in some form of divinity, there looms the question of how a loving God can allow his children to experience so much suffering.
A wise man once taught that suffering comes from three sources in life. First, and if we are honest with ourselves, foremost, we suffer from the decisions we make and their subsequent consequences. We will often seek outside ourselves for blame, but at some level of honesty we realize that nobody else chose the purchases we made that lead us to financial ruin, the lack of competence that lost us the job, or the bad life style choices that lead to poor health. For these sources of suffering, success is in honestly admitting our mistakes and then dealing with their consequences and correcting them in our future choices. As long as we seek or accept the role of victim, we condemn ourselves to a life of hopelessness and despair and deny ourselves the opportunities that are only taken by those who choose to accept responsibility for their actions.
A second from of suffering comes from living in an existence where others make decisions that affect us and where the natural environment is prone to disasters. A driver runs a stop light and hits us. A dictator starts a war that leaves us homeless. Our child is killed in an accident. Severe storms rob us of our property and livelihood. In these things we really are victims, but the way beyond them is much the same as with suffering from our own decisions. The path of the victim is always down. The path beyond is always to take responsibility. In this case, we may not be responsible for what happened to us, but we are responsible for what we do now. We can choose despair and discouragement, or we can choose to rebuild, move on, and from doing so become stronger. Despite who may be to blame for what happened, we are to blame for what we do next. Nature is our example. As winter snows may destroy and bury life, nature uses this time to rebuild and turn the freezing snow into life giving moisture when the sun again comes out, as we may hope it always does as long as we continue to live.
The third form of suffering connects us back with God. Almost all the major world religions view suffering as a tool for refining the spirit. As such, suffering brings with it a deeper meaning. While I do not believe God wishes for his children to suffer, he does recognize and allow it for the greater good that comes of it. To understand that greater good, we must see this life not as a random flash of existence, but as a well designed test. In order to return to God in the fullness of joy, he allows us to be placed in situations where we will be forced to demonstrate the nature of our spirit. Two people can be placed in the same circumstances and react totally opposite. One may choose future happiness and joy, another despair and destruction. The nature of the experience is the same, but the choice of reaction is individual. Whether it be a concentration camp, or the birth of a child, all experiences leave us with a basic choice. We can choose to return to God through living love, or we can dam our progression by choosing selfishness in all its forms of apathy, hate, or fear. Such is the nature of our test. When seen from God’s perspective, all the trials of life become not some form of punishment or retribution, but opportunities to choose how we will spend the eternities. The question is not why we suffer or experience joy, but whether we use that test to come closer to God, or, as Job’s wife told her husband, “curse God and die!” Whatever your trial in life, choose happiness and joy through love.