Suffering and Healing Toward Full Humanity The Many Faces of Loss and Suffering

The Many Faces of Suffering  Suffering: The word has a chilling sound to it; it is something we would rather avoid enduring or even thinking about.  But try as we might to avoid it; we will suffer.

Necessary Losses  Being human by nature entails certain losses that occur all through life, not just when someone dies.  You left your mother’s womb – a warm and secure place – to face a cold jarring world.

Necessary Losses  You lost the coziness and familiarity of being at home with your family when you went off to day care or nursery school.

Necessary Losses  Perhaps you left your friends behind when you changed to another school or moved.

Necessary Losses  Facing graduation, you are about to experience other losses – the constant companionship and satisfactions of high school and perhaps the security of living at home.

Necessary Losses  You can probably project into the future and see hundreds of such losses coming in the ordinary events of your life.  Even in times of joy, such as having a baby, you will be losing something.

When Suffering Seems Senseless  Other forms of suffering seem less necessary to us, but they happen in the normal course of everyone’s life:  for example being rejected.

When Suffering Seems Senseless  Or… falling and breaking a bone.

When Suffering Seems Senseless  What is hardest to cope with are the sufferings that seem totally senseless:  A mother and father grieve over the death of their child.

When Suffering Seems Senseless  A teenager has a long bout with depression that seems unexplained by events in his life.

When Suffering Seems Senseless  A friend watches in horror as his longtime buddy from the neighborhood gets dragged into a tough gang, heavy drug use, and a spiral of violence.

When Suffering Seems Senseless

 In times of immense loss such as death, especially tragic death, people may offer hollow condolences like, “It must be God’s will.”

When Suffering Seems Senseless  Such comments do God and those who suffer a great disservice by effectively telling them to cut off their grieving, not to question, and to accept quietly what has happened.

A Feeling of Disintegration  When we suffer a great tragedy or sorrow, we feel that everything (including ourselves) is coming apart.  Suffering hurts; it is full of pain, sorrow, and anguish.  We cannot help but ask, “Why?”

For Review  Give two examples of necessary losses involved in growing up.  Why does great suffering feel so destructive to a person?