Vincent Thomas Ignatius posted this essay on Facebook about the value and great gift of suffering. I replied after in a comment more driven by my brain then my feelings, I assure you:

Vincent Thomas Ignatius

To add to the list of things we lose when we lose God....

On this list already is...

Morality

Science

Art

The value of life

Individual Liberty

Civility.

Today, I want to add something many wouldn't put on this list.

With the loss of God comes the loss of Legitimate Suffering.

Yes. Suffering and hardship.

One of the ideas both the Catholic and Orthodox churches get right is the value and need for legitimate suffering. It is also embraced in legitimate schools of Psychology, such as Jungian Psychology.

The key word here is LEGITIMATE.

It is legitimate suffering that draws us closer to God and closer to the unconscious aspects of who we are. It is necessary for mental/spiritual growth.

"Wait just a sec, Ignatius!" "I listen to Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland! My church and its Pastor says God wants us to prosper and be filled with joy! What nonsense is this that we must suffer?"

I guess we are greater than the Apostles, almost all of who died horrible deaths. I guess we are greater than the Blessed Virgin, who was told a sword will pierce her heart. I guess we are greater than the Master Himself, Jesus Christ," a man of suffering, familiar with pain."

It is this legitimate suffering that breaks the outer shell and releases the Spirit and Light of God. It is this suffering that paradoxically leads to the peace which passes all understanding.

In the words of Khalil Gibran in his excellent book, The Prophet.... "You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, But rather when these things girdle your life and yet your rise above them naked and unbound."

And....

"Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears."

With the loss of God comes the loss of legitimate suffering. We run from it. We seek a life of comfort, free of adversity. We see difficulty and pain as a curse, not a blessing. Our culture is full of people who avoid suffering as much as they avoid God.

We look at the phony lives of others, through our self deceiving eyes, comparing us to them. When suffering comes, we hide it, suppress it, avoid it. We, in our primal fear, will do anything to avoid it.

That anything includes illegitimate suffering. That is, the pain and difficulty we cause...the neurosis we embrace...which, funny enough, is far worse than the legitimate pain God sends our way. This pain destroys. God's suffering builds.

Offer your legitimate suffering to God. Contemplate on the suffering of the Christ, His Mother, and His Apostles.

There is more gold and joy hidden within this than you will find anywhere else, and through it, you will find yourself, and find God.

I replied:

Agreed. Anyone who has not endured legitimate suffering is not a whole, mature person but is trapped in adolescence. (I suspect that's a big part of what's wrong with the younger generation these days - life's been too easy. In fact it's been so easy they have had to invent problems for themselves because in their hearts they know they have missed out somehow. I believe this is why the whole trans thing caught on despite being completely insane.)

Suffering is a most unwelcome gift to most people (myself included) because, well, it SUCKS. But it is absolutely necessary to become the person you were meant to be. Without it you continue as a child.

So why did God set it up like this? Why not just make us perfect and be done with it?

I suspect it is to give us a special gift. He wanted us to be partners in our creation, to have free will to choose what is right and good or not (and face the consequences) and in the end we will be proud of ourselves for having stayed the course painful though it may have been. And just to make sure we got the point He Himself became one of us and went through much worse than we will. In life there are some good things but in the end we don't remember them - we remember the great things, and they always involved overcoming pain and adversity. There is a reason why most successful movies, books, and television programs are about crime or medical drama or other things involving people overcoming adversity and making great sacrifices; we know instinctively that is the case.

But it sure isn't fun when you are going through it.

Satan, on the other hand, wants us to suffer needlessly because he's, well, an a-hole and so he gets us to do things to avoid suffering that causes suffering. You are absolutely correct. While it's not rational to SEEK suffering (and there are some Christians who do, which I find odd) it is equally not rational to avoid it at all costs. (BTW this is one piece of evidence in support of the "God Hypothesis"; i a world that was driven entirely by random, mechanical forces we wouldn't be complaining about suffering as it would just be what it is. We wouldn't say "it's unfair!" It's only unfair because we know there is some kind of standard and we are suffering in spite of it, perhaps.)

But knowing this doesn't make it suck any less! But at least there is comfort in knowing you are profiting by it, much like Ebeneazor Scrooge accepted the Third ghost in a very different spirit than he did the first because he now understood this was an attempt to help him, not just an arbitrary thing.)

Great post! Oh, and by the way, a most timely one for me as I've been rather bitter since my wife and father died recently.

Oh, and I notice there are only three likes to this post; no surprise considering you are asking people to be grateful for misery. It's a tough sell but you did a great job of it!

1 A reference to 2 Corinthians 12:7 might have been in order, wherein St. Paul tells about the "thorn in his flesh" that he was given, and which he asked to have taken away, and which the Lord refused to take from him and told him why, and Paul accepted it, understanding the reason.