Thankfulness in the Midst of Suffering
From the first moments of our lives, we encounter suffering. In the womb and at birth, we take part in the suffering of our mothers. In our first few years, we cry and long and struggle with total dependence on those around us. Through our childhood we learn through scraped knees and bumped heads, and as adults through broken hearts and unfulfilled desires. If anything is consistent in this world, it’s suffering.
Suffering isn’t something foreign to me. On the surface, my life has looked comfortable—a midwestern girl growing up in a middle-class family, with loving parents and siblings, and the ability to go to college and sustain herself with a full-time job in a nice community. But suffering still found me in deep, substantial, quiet ways.
I grew up never having a best friend. I was bullied throughout my senior year of high school. I was never a person who was picked first or desired over another. And when I finally found love in college, it quickly revealed itself as nothing but use, lust, and abuse. It’s fair to say the sufferings I’ve experienced have not only changed my life but have truly shaped me into the person I am today and the person I’m still becoming.
My story is nothing I like to relive—they’re not memories my mind willingly returns to—but it’s mine, and it has given me things I could’ve never had otherwise.
Without a lack of friendships as a teenager, I would’ve never gone to college and met my best friends.
Without the bullying in high school, I wouldn’t have learned to prioritize what God thinks of me over what others think.
Without that relationship in college, I would’ve never joined Magdala.
It was in the darkest and most desolate moments of my life that I learned to rely solely on God and His love for me. I clung to the Cross as if I was there during His Passion. I survived depression and abuse and conquered the fear of being alone because I felt my Lord so close to me in the pain. He knew that my heart had to break into a million pieces just to let Him into it. It wasn’t an easy lesson to learn, but I owe it everything.
During those times of darkness, I clung to the stories of the saints and what scripture said about suffering. The Psalmists weren’t wrong when they said the Lord is close to the broken-hearted (Psalm 34:18), and the Church Triumphant sing a similar tune.
“You will be consoled according to the greatness of your sorrow and affliction; the greater the suffering, the greater will be the reward.” —St. Mary Magdalen de’Pazzi
“For Jesus Christ I am prepared to suffer still more.” —St. Maximilian Kolbe
“God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.” —St. Augustine
“If you really want to love Jesus, first learn to suffer, because suffering teaches you to love.” —St. Gemma Galgani
“Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials.” —St. James (James 1:2)
My story is full of suffering, and so is everyone else’s. These moments are a part of the Lord’s vocation for us—a vocation He wrote before we even existed. The problem is, we live in a world that tells us suffering is bad. Seek pleasure and avoid pain, that’s what man’s ultimate desire is to secular psychology. But we know better—we know Him.
When we suffer, we become closer to our Savior. He didn’t just die for us; He took the weight of every single sin, mistake, shameful moment, and painful experience on His back, up to Calvary, and redeemed them on the Cross. That is the Lord we unite ourselves within suffering, and it’s because we unite ourselves to Him in those moments that good can flourish as a result. He turns our suffering into joy; our mourning into dancing; our failure into victory.
This week is a time to be thankful for all the good in our lives, but I’m encouraging you not to forget the bad. Pray for the Lord to show you the beauty of your story—the redemption within your suffering. It’s not easy to relive those moments, but He’s waiting for us to bring Him into them.
Bring Him in.