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August 6, 2020I recently was asked by a friend to pray for a young woman who unexpectantly lost her mom in a car crash. This woman had already endured much suffering from her newborn baby diagnosed with cancer and other associated struggles. It made our prayer group cry out, “Why God?” How could this happen?
While we don’t like to admit it, we do have a “why” that is very simple. Sin. As Jesus clarifies in the Gospels, bad things don’t necessarily happen because of your sin or my sin, but because of Original sin. That moment when evil entered the world. This is the foundational reason why suffering occurs.
But this isn’t usually the “why” that we are asking. We are crying out, “why God, why didn’t you save her? Why God, why would you allow so much suffering?” This doesn’t make sense God. Why? We shouldn’t be surprised when we question God as Job in the Old Testament did, when literally everything was taken away from him. God, you could have prevented this, why didn’t you?
We need only look to the cross to understand why some suffering isn’t taken away from us. Jesus was not spared from human suffering. He died for us in order to give us eternal life. Individual suffering isn’t necessarily caused by our sin, but it can redeem us from our sin. God’s goal is to make us all into saints, and it is suffering that accomplishes this. Jesus’ suffering opened the door to eternal life, our suffering helps us and others to walk through that door.
Truthfully, we focus so much on the suffering that God does allow that often we forget to thank Him from the suffering He spares us from. Answered prayers, periods of good health, our families, our friends, the time we had with loved ones before they passed. God is constantly working for our good, most of which we never see. We are protected much more than we know.
None of this means that it is easy to accept suffering. As human beings we inherently fight back against it. What it does mean is we can find purpose, or a “why” to our suffering. St. Paul says, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the affliction of Christ on behalf of His body, which is the Church” (Colossians 1:24). Does this mean Jesus didn’t suffer enough on the cross? NO. It means that in our fallen human state, we also need to suffer to complete our own sanctification to receive eternal life.
Through the mercy of suffering, we can even bypass Purgatory and go straight to Heaven when we offer up our suffering to God. Through our suffering we can be purified on this earth. Even better, our loved ones who also suffer can be brought closer to Heaven, our ultimate goal. We may never know the why specific incidents of suffering occurs, but we do know that through our suffering we can pray for others and offer it up. We know that God brings good out of all things. Through our suffering, we are made more into the likeness of Christ.