Personal Suffering Analysis

I believe suffering results from our separation from God. He is holy, all-powerful, all-loving, all that is good. Each day I find myself doing things that move me away from Him. Every time I sin, the world becomes a little bit worse. I can do no good thing apart from God. The more I separate myself from Him, the more likely I am to cause someone else harm or pain.

The most significant period of suffering I have gone through was when I lost my grandfather. I remember we had celebrated his 50th birthday never did imagine it would be the last. That horrible news impacts my life forever realizing that we don’t count for a tomorrow. His death was suddenly due to an embolism. His death caused me a lot of suffering because he was not sick and we had made a lot of plans. I did not know how to deal with his death because I was heartbroken. I wonder and questioned if maybe only God had given us a warning. I did not know how to manage my grief and mourned for him because I was angry with God. It took me time to understand that it was God’s will and that his soul had returned to God. I learned that his death of the body was not the end of his life (Rubin & Yasien-Esmael, 2004). I found comfort in the midst of suffering by finding acceptance in God. Also, I found praying for him and sharing my suffering with others helped me console my pain. I learn that “the lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit,” which help my relationship with God grow as my pain slowly vanished.

Our experiences of suffering may also help us in our moral conduct as an experience of suffering serves to make us sympathetic to the trials of others. We learn to a) help the afflicted (through consolation and relief) and to B) not inflict harm on others, having experienced suffering ourselves. Furthermore, many spiritual seekers in the past have felt that suffering and spiritual progress are inexorably linked, pointing to St Teresa of Avila and St Francis of AssisiI as examples . I believe that if we can learn from our

A time when I experienced suffering was when I was faced to deal with the deaths of both my mother and father in law in 2014-2015. Loosing someone close is never easy. My father in law was terribly ill. He was weighing 250 and ended up weighing barely 120 before death. He had 2 cancers in the body, the throat and bone.

Imagine a world where happiness is given to you. Happiness is not worked for nor earned, you just get it. Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, is a novel written in 1932, where Huxley predicts the future of humankind. At the time, Henry Ford was famous for the cheap mass production of the T-model cars using the assembly line. Thus, Huxley predicts a future in which people from the World State(the society he predicts the future will hold) are engineered in test tubes and conditioned to be one of the castes in their society. In this society, the characteristics and emotions that makes humans human are banned. Families, love, passion, literature, natural birth, religion and monogamy are banned because

We all have been in a bad situation yet very few of us would go as far as to label themselves as suffering. To suffer is to experience or be subjected to something bad or unpleasant. In the cases of Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano they both had to endure watching those near them grasped by the cold hands of death. Unlike Equiano, Mary was subjected to a form of suffering that created conflicts within herself concerning her predicament and her god. Equiano on the other hand was placed in isolation with those around him choosing to commit suicide,thus leading him to the edge of depression.

There are many differing ways that people suffer. Some effects can be superior and some can be inferior. In the quote by H. Richard Niebuhr, suffering can make you stronger, have more character, along with respect.

Evidently, suffering can give a person strength to go on in their daily lives. Being

Why humans suffer and where God is during it are theological questions that have constantly been debated on. Rabbi Kushner in the PBS video Suffering: A Time to Love and a Time to Hate, John F. Haught in his book Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution, and the Bible each provide their own analysis on where God is when humans are suffering and persecuted. Thomas West is his chapter “The Human Response of Hope” gives his insight regarding life after death especially hope for salvation. All these sources aid in answering personal questions regarding theodicy: suffering, death, and hope.

The role of suffering is one that everyone assumes at least one point in their life. I8 am lu7cky enough to say that I have yet to take on that role. Neibuhr says that people find their individuality after suffering, and I agree. I may not have dealt with suffering myself, but I know a lot of people that have.

According to Buddha, suffering is an inevitable part of human existence. Who hasn't experience hardship? Some days you think, holy crap, why did I even both getting out of bed today! Not too long ago, I had the week from hell. Complete with sleepless nights, worrying about all kinds of stuff I couldn't control. I was so looking forward to the cat going to the vet's. I thought, yeah, no kitty to crawl into bed with me and keep me awake in the middle of the night! Guess what, I stayed up worrying about whether the cat was okay! On top of a friend, herself dealing with some trying issues, snapping at me. True, she had a point, but still it is stressful to deal with. And other stuff, I am not even going to mention. I was thinking about all the

Suffering can define who a person is, if they don’t let go. Some people hold on to the hurt and the suffering. It’s better to know you went through it, move on and let it go. It’s a lot of back age to hold onto something like that. Suffering doesn’t define who you are, it’s just

The quote “What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger” is credited to the German theorist, Friedrich Nietzsche. The wording was changed ever so slightly over time as Nietzsche said it: “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” As it goes, he was absolutely correct.

We see this in The Book of Job too. To Job, suffering happens as a result of God testing us. A Satan questioned the followings of God's people. This led to God testing his best subject, Job. God made Job suffer in the worst way any human being could. This would be physical suffering and mental suffering. When God took away Job's family and possessions, he suffered mentally. All of his possessions and loved ones were gone without a reason known to him. It was physical suffering when he was struck with sores about his body. This also gives reason to suffering that happens when you can't explain it. Even a person who thinks that they are perfect can suffer. You could be just like Job, almost a perfect worshiper. That would be even more the reason for you to be tested. The Book of Job is one of the teachings of the Bible, a spiritual and religious guide. A person reading this would believe that suffering is a test. It is a test of your faith, your faith in God. Therefore, if we were suffering, as long as we keep faith, the suffering will end. As long as we keep faith the suffering will stop, and better things will happen and develop.

The suffering of man is a very complicated matter that is most likely impossible to understand completely. It is a subject that people have grappled with since the dawn of recorded history. In fact, suffering is evident in every form of art man has created. Suffering is in our paintings, our poetry, our music, our plays, and in anything else that is conceivable. But still, we as a whole still struggle with the idea of suffering. It is my opinion that some individuals may grasp the notion of suffering more than others, but that no one person will ever fully understand suffering in every form. A person may only understand his or her own personal suffering, not suffering as a whole. It is the next step to then say