SUFFERING

SUFFERING- AN ORDINARY PART OF LIFE Are you suffering In your life Right now Are you BLAMING God Or are you UNITING Your sufferings With God's and Christ's In a broad sense suffering is defined as pain And it can be mental- Physical-or spiritual-OR sometimes all three At the same time And it comes in varying degrees From mild to intolerable So I ask you again ARE you suffering I would say yes Because we ALL are-in some way For suffering Is an ORDINARY part of life And it is found Even in the lives Of us Who follow Jesus Maybe particularly so “For this You have been called Because Christ Also suffered for you Leaving you an example That you should follow In his footsteps” 1 Peter 2:21 It is not A punishment or a penalty But an ordinary part Of earthly existence The good suffer The bad suffer And those in between suffer IF you haven't suffered At some point In your life You are not human And most times When suffering comes We must simply endure it There is no way To hurry it along We simply must LIVE through it We must ENDURE the cross -LIKE Christ did And patiently Work our way through it GOD KNOWS our suffering Before we even know “I am in pain and distress May your salvation-Oh God- PROTECT me” Psalm 69:29 And God is PRESENT with us Even when we are suffering “MY flesh and my heart May fail But GOD is the strength Of my heart And MY PROTECTION FOREVER” Psalm 73:26 The more we endure the cross The more Christ-like we become And if Christ Could RESURRECT over death over life We can ENDURE suffering By UNITING our lives With Christ's “Therefore We do not lose heart Though outward We are wasting away Yet inwardly We are BEING RENEWED DAY-BY-DAY For our light And momentary troubles Are achieving for us An ETERNAL glory That far outweighs Them all So we fix our eyes NOT on what is seen But on WHAT IS UNSEEN For what is seen Is TEMPORARY But what is UNSEEN IS ETERNAL” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 SUFFERING is An ORDINARY part of life But by UNITING our sufferings With Christ's WE WILL RISE AGAIN Robert P. Wallman 5-15-14 INSPIRED by an article in LIVING FAITH magazine by Father James McKarns Ps 8-20-14 1-13-15 10-18-15