Suffering

My friend Mary...Beautiful Soul

A few months ago my very best soul sister since high school days commented to me that she feels sad for all the suffering that I have had in my life. She said that she doesn't have suffering in her life. I reminded her that she did have suffering, the loss of her husband in 2001 and she has recently lost a son. The loss of the Love of her life and the loss of her child. To me that is great suffering.

What is suffering? Why does it come into our lives? Why is it that some people seem to have more suffering than others?

The definition of suffering is:
1. to undergo or feel pain or distress
2. to sustain injury, disadvantage, or loss
3. to endure pain, disability, death, etc., patiently or willingly
4. to undergo, be subjected to, or endure (pain, distress, injury, loss, or anything unpleasant)
5. to undergo or experience (any action, process, or condition)
6. to tolerate or allow

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I have had a life filled with circumstances that brought suffering in the forefront, although I have never thought about these times as 'suffering.' I have just accepted what comes into my life as a lesson to learn from. I don't get stuck in the suffering either, because I believe that even if I don't get the lesson at the time, I will, in thought and retrospection, see the lesson at another point in time.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
― Rumi

I have found that the above quote from Rumi is so very true. At the moment of great suffering (being wounded) is the moment when the Light enters in and there is peace in that moment. There are lessons to be learned, there is a divine revelation that cannot come in times of joy or complacency, I would not trade those times for anything in the world., for my soul craves the intimacy with the Light more than anything else in the world.

What may be considered great suffering by one person may not be as drastic to another. We each have our own perceptions of what suffering is. To one, another's life may be so filled with sufferings that we cannot fathom how they live through it all. To another, life's sufferings may appear as one or two periods of pain in their life. Yet, if we were to walk in their shoes, we could see the purpose for their sufferings and understand that each one has what their soul needs to grow.

As I think about it, with my own beliefs, I see that souls who are younger seem to suffer less than souls who are older. Young souls are filled with abundant energy and when they come through times of suffering, they wonder why this is happening to them so audibly that those of us who are older hear their cries and know that only a divine intervention can comfort them.

Older souls seem to have a knowingness of why suffering is and what it brings to their lives. They accept and grow. Like Job in the Bible, no matter what comes, they will not stop their spiritual journey. They will continue onward.

That is not to say that older souls move with grace and peace through their sufferings. They cry, they mourn, they react, they ask "why", they cry some more. Then, the reality of what they are going through comes before their eyes and a connection with Spirit carries them forward into a peaceful place from which they can live and move and have their being in.

My life has been full of suffering, yet it has been full of the Light which guides me onward. So I wish that there wasn't so much suffering? Sure I do. I can wish until my heart stops beating, but nothing will change. My only recourse is to accept what comes, live in that moment and go forward, knowing that all is truly as it is supposed to be.

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
― Kahlil Gibran