How to Suffer Well

Description

When you’re facing suffering, it’s very natural to ask why. However, if we suspend that question and instead ask ‘God, how can I love the most at this moment?’, you’ll get more answers than if you were to actually get the answer to your question. Today, Mike Gormley and Dave VanVickle give tips how on how to suffer well and weather the storms of difficulties. 

Snippet from the Show

Suffering is awful, but because of the Cross, we can embrace it, we can embrace it well and we can learn to suffer well.

Shownotes

Tips from Mike and Dave on How to Suffer Well:

- Remind yourself that everyone is fighting their own battle. Remembering that everyone is suffering in their own way can take your focus off yourself and shift your focus to others. 

- Have a reason for your suffering. Offering up suffering keeps your focus strong and your faith big.

- Be bluntly honest with God. Bring your anger to the Lord and allow Him to change your heart. 

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. (Colossians 1:24)

And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. (Job 42:10)

Quote from C.S. Lewis 

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains.

Quote from Fr. Jacques Philippe

What really hurts is not so much suffering itself as the fear of suffering. If welcomed trustingly and peacefully, suffering makes us grow. It matures and trains us, purifies us, teaches us to love unselfishly, makes us poor in heart, humble, gentle, and compassionate toward our neighbor. Fear of suffering, on the other hand, hardens us in self-protective, defensive attitudes, and often leads us to make irrational choices with disastrous consequences.