Quotes about Suffering

We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but thereis sorrow, and we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. If we try to evade sorrow, refusing to deal with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.

Sorrow removes a great deal of a person's shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow.

The transfiguration was completed on the Mount of Ascension. If Jesus had gone to heaven directly from the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have gone alone. He would have been nothing more to us than a glorious Figure. But He turned His back on the glory, and came down from the mountain to identify Himself with fallen humanity.

Remember what makes prayer easy is not our wits or our understanding, but the tremendous agony of God in redemption...Prayer is not what it costs us, but what it cost God to enable us to pray.

His agony is the basis of the simplicity of our salvation.

If God can accomplish His purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank Him for breaking yours?

The place for the comforter is not that of one who preaches, but of the comrade who says nothing and prays to God about the matter. The biggest thing you can do for those who are suffering is not to talk platitudes, not to ask questions, but to get into contact with God, and the "greater work" will be done by prayer.

If we were never depressed, we would not be alive—only material things don't suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation.

Until we can come face-to-face with the deepest, darkest fact of life without damaging our view of God's character, we do not yet know Him.

Getting into God's stride means nothing less than oneness with Him. It takes a long time to get there, but keep at it. Don't give up because the pain is intense right now—get on with it, and before long you will find that you have a new vision and a new purpose.

It is a solemn thing, and no small scandal in the Kingdom, to see God's children starving while actually seated at the Father's table.

Will we remain faithful in our obedience to God and be willing to suffer the humiliation of refusing to be independent?