Suffering

Suffering is something that all of us will experience one time or another. None of us like to suffer. It is something that we love to hate, and a state that no one would like to be long in.

I myself just came out of a low point of my life. Read the entries in my blog a couple of weeks ago and you will know what I mean. During the point of suffering - which can last from hours to days to years - most people, depending on the magnitude of the suffering, tend to focus on very little things else from the pain that they are suffering from at that point of time. Myself included.

During the times of suffering, the most natural reaction of most people is to want to get out of that suffering as much as possible. Just like my friend who is having some financial problems, she does all she can in her power to reduce those problems, to resolve them and to eliminate them. None one like to be in the mist of suffering.

But we also know that through suffering, people became stronger, be it physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually. Just as Calvin's Dad would say:

We grow in the mist of our suffering. We become wiser and more emotionally stable. We learn good habits to avoid going into the rut again. We learn to appreciate what we have when we learnt to survive on what we have not. We went through the valleys of our lives and, with what we have learnt, we can help others who were going through the same valley.

In the words of the Bible,

We "carry the cross daily" so that we "become more and more like Christ"

Herein lies my dilemma: Should I go all out to help my friend who is in need, whom I mentioned a few paragraph earlier, or should I let her go through her problems so that she will grow from it? Does that mean that the more I helped her, the less she will benefit from her ordeal? If I let her be, how much can she take before she breaks down? If I help her with her problem, does that mean that she will grow less because of me? And if we are suffering, do we not want somebody to do everything to help us?

Somebody help me out here.

But this I know:

When we are all crying from out pain, we are not alone. When we cry out in pain, His heart is broken for us. He has experienced all the pains and suffering that any man has experience. He knows what we are going through for He went through the same thing, if not more. And we know that when we are crying, Jesus cries with us.

Jesus wept - John 11:35