[Foreword: I began writing this post last week and have just now had an opportunity to complete it.]

Suffering is abundant this week.

In reality, suffering is consistently abundant. But the subject itself and its emotive/moral/religious side effects within the life of my loved ones as well as within my seminary classes is very prevalent this week.

For a semester that has proven itself such a rejuvenating source in my life, this semester has also forced me to wrestle with the idea of suffering and how we think about it within the context of faith and in relationship to God.

In my Wisdom Literature class, we've just finished three weeks of studying the biblical book of Job. For those who are unfamiliar with the story, Job is presented as an entirely righteous man who is suddenly plagued by a number of devastating misfortunes, including--I would argue the most heartbreaking--the loss of his children. He also loses all sources of livelihood and contracts an insufferable skin condition that refuses to go away. His three friends show up when they hear the horrible news of the loss Job is suffering and each eventually present three viewpoints of God to try to convince Job, no matter how righteous he thinks he is, that he MUST have done something to deserve all of this pain and loss. The reader finds out in chapters one and two that God has essentially caused this death and destruction in Job's life by allowing Hasatan (Satan) to make all of these things happen to Job. Job spends 35 of the 40 chapters arguing his righteousness with his "friends" and angrily demanding to know why God even created him if God was going to take everything away from him. He claims that God is silent during this time of devastation and destruction in his life, but I have to ponder the question, "How much did Job's friends deter him from finding/hearing God in the midst of such tremendous suffering?" Other questions abound from this piece of wisdom literature such as, "Why does God cause/allow bad things to happen to those who love God?" and "How do Christians, as people charged with the call to love God and love all people, talk about hope and grace within the suffering frameworks of Job and today's real-life situations of suffering that those around us face?"

While I do not concur with the ending of Job--where God "restores" all of Job's fortunes, because, well...what about children who died in the beginning?--I will always believe in and search for hope/God's presence/God's action in the midst and aftermath of suffering because I believe with all of my heart that is what I am called to do. I refuse to explain away or dismiss suffering, but I will always work to be diligent in being fully present with those in my ministerial/familial care to hopefully remind them that divine love cannot be defeated or overcome by suffering, though we may not want to even consider God or God's love for us for several years after we face heartbreak.

There is no quick fix for suffering. It is real. It is messy. It is often unfathomable, with no explanation.

I received a text from my mother earlier this afternoon before my second class of the day (Theodicy, ironically) informing me that one of the little girls with whom my younger sister has worked with in an outreach program for underprivileged children for the previous four summers or so passed away in her sleep last night. She was six years old. In the face of such devastation, what do we say to the family? What do I say to my sister who loved this child like she was her own?

In my opinion, those are both kind of trick questions. I believe that there is a considerable amount of healing power in love through presence and silence. Nothing I can say will bring that child back. Nothing I can say will automatically flip a switch in the hearts and minds of her family and my sister to make their mourning cease. I believe that life will continue, though it will not initially feel like it for those who are grieving her loss. I do not believe that the hole they have in their hearts because of the loss of their daughter, sister, grand daughter, niece will ever be filled.

But I do believe that these, and others who suffer, will be given what they need to survive. Even when life doesn't seem like it's worth living because the suffering is so great. God's power is not shown by smiting those who are not righteous enough, nor does God use God's power to kill children. No. God's power is made known to us in the inward transformation that happens when we experience suffering in our lives--through family members who take time off work to be with us in time of loss, through our community who actively takes time to pray for God's peace and presence to be known in spite of suffering, the people from small-group who show up to our house with food for us and our family, in the friends who do not make us explain what we feel and in the pastor/pastoral presence who does not attempt to explain away our pain or move us to some sort of healing, when frankly, we are in no way ready to even utter such a word.

Suffering cannot and should not be explained away. I think it is our duty as Christians, as well as human beings, to wrestle with it, yes, but also to do our work to alleviate suffering in the world. That's what we're called to do. No, such work does not involve "quick-fix" answers. This kind of work calls us to be authentic, to provide a safe space for sadness and mourning, and above all, to love those who hurt as Christ taught us to love. 

I believe in healing. I believe in the transformation that comes out of bad situations. But I also, while not believing that God causes suffering, believe fully that God is big enough for us to blame God at first when bad things happen to us--because it hurts and as the Creator of all things, whom many of us believe to be all-loving and protecting, it makes sense that God would be the first target for our anger, our grief and our questions. God is big enough for that. God is also big enough to heal and to restore. And it happens all the time. Maybe not in the way we'd like it to happen or in our timing (at least, that's often my experience), but I do believe that is the work of God: healing and loving and restoring God's people. 

While this is in no way the end-all, be-all answer, it's the answer that makes the most sense to me as of now: I believe that God loves us through our suffering, and that that's what we are called to do for others in their time of need.