Life is just full of experiences that could fill a person with so much suffering. Sickness. Poverty. Death. Depression. We all go through suffering at some point in our lives and we all deal with it differently. What could be a slight scratch for one could be an anguish for another. It is suffering just the same.
In dealing with suffering, would it help to think that life could be half a wreck or somewhat broken already to begin with? Thinking that life is half-broken already, then we come to understand that the chances of both failure or success and happiness or suffering; both exist. When we fail and when we do not meet expectations, others’ or our self-imposed ones; when we experience setbacks, bumps and bruising; then we are prepared to say, “Oh well, that is life and it is what it is.”
These seem like words coming from a mind of person fraught with negative thoughts. We usually resort to an antidote which is the power of positive thinking. I think positive thinking could only get us a mile ahead. Along the way, positive thinking tends to lose its power and the realities that life could be bleak at times, could start to set in. There must be no surprises there when we fail at times. Failures could be painful. We feel the pain but then we learn to move on.
Most of the time, we suffer from our failures immensely. It could be beyond our belief that we are undeserving of failures and that we are all meant to be first, to reach the finish line, to succeed. When we think we are underserving of failures and sufferings, we get tormented even more.
Not succeeding in our health, in our career, in our relationships , in our lives; could throw us off, dissapoint us, hurt us and make us suffer but very often what we consider success is just too much of this world. Whatever it is, of this world; it does not last. It withers, falters or dies.
We all could learn something from Job’s sufferings. He is a righteous man who faced failures and affliction like no other – poverty, sickness and death. He was berated. He lamented his life and how it came to be. He searched for answers and was tormented by his anguish: Is God unjust to allow the suffering of Job who is “blameless and upright”?
Like Job, we can’t escape failures and sufferings. Remember that life can be considered half-broken already to begin with. In life’s finiteness, there is hope in the greatness that awaits us beyond this life. Sufferings that our bodies and minds experience are real but are all, of this world. We look beyond and find meaning to our earthly sufferings by holding on to these words:
“I know my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on this earth . ” Job 19:25
Appointed by God 