suffering is a misunderstood pain

It’s easy to thank God and to be happy when you live a sheltered life and have no concept of suffering; Suffer and then do all of the above.

The animals feel that this urgency is mutual. Their own suffering has made them aware of human suffering. More frequent contact with us has sensitized them to what troubles us. They feel our anxiety and...

Although psychology and pedagogy have always maintained the belief that a child is a happy being without any conflicts, and have assumed that the sufferings of adults are the results of the burdens and hardships...

When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted friendship – when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He...

Few suffer more than those who refuse to forgive themselves.

The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

It is often simply from lack of creative imagination that we do not go far enough in suffering.

Don’t be a zombie for anyone, if your oppressor likes zombies, cinemas are not located in mars.

Those who are in pain – most of the world’s populations at any given moment – do not do a lot of thinking, speaking, or writing about suffering. All their energy goes into surviving. That...

‘Freedom.’ He pauses a moment to reflect on the F-word. ‘Sometimes I think it’s an idea that enslaves us. We’re never free from hungering for the notion that we can even have freedom. When perhaps...

There is the solitude of suffering, when you go through darkness that is lonely, intense, and terrible. Words become powerless to express your pain; what others hear from your words is so distant and different...

Painting completed my life. I lost three children and a series of other things that would have fulfilled my horrible life. My painting took the place of all this. I think work is the best....

Life is a harsh, twisted paradox.On one hand, you wish for no pain or suffering or misery on anyone. Yet you hope to see your children grow into individuals of compassionate and kind character. And...

Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and grief! He who has not seen the things of this world, and the heart of men in this...

What have you done with the miracles that God planted in your days? What have you done with the talents God bestowed on you? You buried yourself in a cave because you were fearful of...

I am willing without further exercise in pain to open my heart. And this needs no doctrine or theology of suffering. We love apocalypses too much, and crisis ethics and florid extremism with its thrilling...

When confronted with suffering that won’t go away or with even a minor problem, we instinctively focus on what is missing,…not on the Master’s hand. Often when you think everything has gone wrong, it’s just...

The suffering man ought really to consume his own smoke; there is no good in emitting smoke till you have made it into fire.

Help me to get my eyes off my suffering and onto you, God.

God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives...

Adults had the notion that juveniles needed to suffer. Only when they had suffered enough to wipe out most of their naturally joyous spirits and innocence were they staid enough to be considered mature. An...

Even though life is hard, never make your life miserable, stressed and out weighed, you will burry yourself in stress.

By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness; and in this we may be right. And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness – the desire to see...

Father, be near as we are surrounded by this cloud of deep suffering. Open our eyes to see that you are all things, the light and the darkness, not only those things that seem good...

When we oppose oppression, we lift our hands from the collective reins that empower such oppression.

Suffering often draws us closer to God. Instead of being a sign of God’s punishment or distance, suffering can purify us, lead us into the heart of God, and transform our souls.

I remember one teacher there — I can’t recall her name now. She was short and spare, and I remember her eager jutting chin. Quite unexpectedly one day (in the middle, I think, of an...

There is, of course, some comfort to be derived from the thought that everything that occurs at the level of secondary causality – in nature or history – is governed not only by a transcendent...

Don’t be afraid of suffering. Often scars are the medals of success.

If you weren’t built for this life, you’d be dead by now. i think the problem is people don’t share enough of their pain with the world, so they never know who else is in...

Alline knew that he could not do anything to make himself more saved, for the righteousness of Christ was sufficient. But he did see that what he did on the earth now would matter greatly...

Humiliation is humiliation only when you choose to suffer.

Sorrow is a sanctuary as long as self is kept outside. […] let us not foster, embrace, rekindle and indulge our grief. For then our sorrow is a selfish and luxurious fiction, a ground in...

Life is flinching in the midst of breathing, gasping at the thought of dying. It’s climbing ropeless up sheer rock faces, groping for the next finger-hole of hope. Steady on! Only a thousand feet to...

Oh yes, you do, now, for you love me and you suffer.

U ovom društvu podjednako patimo svi, i žene i muškarci, samo su uloge podeljene, i to otprilike ovako: Kad mi patimo zbog žena, to je gotovo redovno zbog toga što žene nisu onakve kakve bismo...

Penance is a sacrifice, a voluntary punishment to show remorse for a sin. The more grievous the sin, the greater the self-inflicted suffering. For some, the ultimate penance is death. But for others, it simply...

There’s this human capacity for joy and endurance, even when things are at their worst. A joy that occurs not despite our suffering, but within it.

When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period...

… because Mr. Applebaum, who is ostensibly teaching us precalculus but is mostly teaching me that pain and suffering must be endured stoically, says, “You feel what, Tiny?”.

Anything is bearable as long as you can make a story out of it…

How I wish, how fervently I ache, to take my mother’s hand, kiss her check,tell her I love her, and watch her smile. For me it was not, nor can ever be. But for you,...

Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?

And as if suffering ever taught anybody a thing except to thank God when it ended.

Theology alone doesn’t convine anyone.Only those words which are pregnant with action, theology that is born of suffering, of struggles, of the poor–this theology is a testimony. This theology leads to conversion. (Leonardo Boff, p....

Pain without cause is a pain we can’t trust. We assume it’s been chosen or fabricated.

Tko npr. formulira govor o Bogu Abrahamovu, Izakovu i Jakovljevu tako da se u njemu više ne čuje Jobov uzdisaj i tužaljka ‘Ta dokle još?’, taj se ne bavi teologijom nego mitologijom.

Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won where the way leads to the cross.

Sacramental listening reminds us that current suffering isn’t the end of the story. God loves us deeply, and the vision for the future is vaster and more magnificent than we could ever imagine. In these...