Human suffering is a mystery, and yet also an opportunity

Suffering is still largely a mystery to us. If someone has the smallest belief in God and acknowledges His existence, then they ask, “How can a loving God allow good people to suffer?” … My own personal search led me to the short answer that suffering is meritorious when it is united to our Lord’s suffering on the cross.

In my own life, I can attest to God’s love during the most difficult times of suffering, whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual. I know from family stories the deep anguish and sorrow my parents and siblings felt as they watched me suffer seizures and the pain of all the testing and hospital stays. I know firsthand the daily fear of feeling like I am suffocating from not being able to breathe. I have lived through all the setbacks of hospitalizations due to respiratory failure. As a quadriplegic, the ordinary functions and tasks of daily living are monumental to me, but I want to make myself a witness to others of the power of God’s love. I want to show them how that love sustains me throughout my suffering, and how it can sustain them through theirs. I believe that God has invited me to understand in a deeper way the mystery of suffering through the cross of His Son, Jesus…

Just as every person is different from another, so God gives each person a different cross to carry. God chose my cross for me from the day I was born.

Neither I nor my parents did anything to cause my sickness. The fact that this cross is mine from the beginning of my life is evidence enough that God has a very special plan for me — one that is different from most people. Despite the personal nature of our crosses, we can all use them to share in His Son’s passion. This was the way He chose to show His love for mankind by redeeming us from sin. I believe this is where we go for the answer…

There is probably not a person in the world who hasn’t asked, “How could God allow this to happen?” Perfectly healthy people are stricken with cancer. Loving parents suffer the tragedy of losing a child. Such tragedies beg the question. We may think that it doesn’t make sense. We may think that God is cruel for allowing terrible things to happen to good people. But we must recognize suffering for what it is. It is an opportunity to unite our sufferings to Christ’s suffering on the cross. We are called to defeat suffering through love, just as Christ Jesus did with His cross. When we are able to do this, we come into a deeper, more intimate friendship with Christ — one that could last for eternity.

Excerpt from Love Your Cross: How Suffering Became Sacrifice, by Therese M. Williams (TAN Books, 2019), pp. 8-11, www.tanbooks.com.

THERESE M. WILLIAMS, who suffered spinal meningitis at 18 months and has lived as a paraplegic for more than 40 years, writes from Naples, FL.