Suffering is redemptive

(Found on Hugh Hewitt’s onetruegodblog.com – a must read)

Why Suffer?
by David Allen White
Perhaps the most obsessive idea in the Modern Age is the avoidance of suffering. The Temple of Science will cure our bodily ailments and create a climate-controlled perfect environment in which we can live in perpetual comfort; the Nanny State will pamper us from cradle to grave assuring that no unhappiness or trouble ever touches us; Feelgood Belief Systems will chatter endlessly about "luv, luv, luv" where religion is roses without thorns. We do not wish to suffer. Who does? But from the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden, through the captivity and wanderings of the Chosen People, through the agony of Abraham to sufferings of Job, up to the Passion and Crucifixion of Our Lord, God instructs us otherwise. Suffering is necessary; suffering is just; suffering is redemptive.

“Suffering is redemptive” – to bad redemption is rarely painless but David Allen White is correct, “suffering is redemptive.”