Pain
Every person alive fits somewhere onto a scale of suffering that ranges from little to much.
Joni Eareckson Tada
Are you in a crisis of great magnitude? Cry out to God in your pain. Be honest with him about what you are feeling. Ask him to reveal himself to you.
Ruth Graham
Every week I hear stories about people’s pain. I have probably always heard these stories, but until I experienced loss myself, I did not listen intently to them or let those stories penetrate the protective shell around my heart. I am more sensitive to the pain now, not as oblivious and selfish as I used to be.
Jerry Sittser
Are you suffering pain that seems unbearable? Do not fear…. faith and pain are not mutually exclusive. You can have faith and experience pain.
Ruth Graham
Paul wrote in Romans 8:26 that sometimes when overcome by suffering, we do not know how to pray. But, Paul said, our dumbness before God is not offensive to him or indicative of a lack of faith. Instead, it is an invitation for God to draw near and to intercede for us “with groans that words cannot express,” like a good mother does when holding a distraught child on her lap.
Jerry Sittser
I desperately wanted to kill myself. Physically, I was little more than a corpse. I had no hope of ever walking again. How I prayed for some accident or miracle to kill me. The mental and spiritual anguish was as unbearable as the physical torture.
Joni Eareckson Tada
During his years in Nazi death camps during World War II, Viktor Frankl observed that the prisoners who exercised the power to choose how they would respond to their circumstances displayed dignity, courage, and inner vitality. They found a way to transcend their suffering. Some chose to believe in God in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
Jerry Sittser
I have read books and heard speakers that implied that if we were really giving thanks for all things and seeing our sufferings in the light of God’s Word, they wouldn’t even seem like sufferings. But that sort of unrealistic, happy-go-lucky approach to trials can’t be found in the Bible.
Joni Eareckson Tada
People who suffer loss feel unspeakable pain. At times it seems almost unbearable. I have often told myself, not always convincingly, that pain is a gift, a sure sign that we are alive. Pain is a gift because it shows we have a capacity to feel, whether it is pain in the body or pain in the soul.
Jerry Sittser
I encourage you to talk to God about what you are going through. Be specific. Start by describing how you feel. Be honest about your emotions, fears, confusion, and questions.
Ruth Graham
Sorrow indicates that people who have suffered loss are living authentically in a world of misery, and it expresses the emotional anguish of people who feel pain for themselves or for others. Sorrow is noble and gracious. It enlarges the soul until the soul is capable of mourning and rejoicing simultaneously, of feeling the world’s pain and hoping for the world’s healing at the same time. However painful, sorrow is good for the soul.
Jerry Sittser
Why is my pain unending?…This is what the Lord says, “If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me.”
Jeremiah 15:18–19
I am in pain and distress; may your salvation, O God, protect me.
Psalm 69:29
Those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.
1 Peter 4:19
God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.
1 Corinthians 10:13