Community Submission | By Dr. Charles Cooper
Be honest, you're suffering. Maybe it's finances tightening like a vise, a body that won’t cooperate, a marriage fraying at the edges, or a quiet loneliness that keeps its own kind of score. If you’re part of the human race, you have suffered, are suffering, or will suffer. That’s the unavoidable math of life. For me, the journey becomes a little more bearable when I can understand why pain shows up at my door. As best as I can tell, experience points toward three broad reasons why good people suffer.
First, nothing in this world escapes decay, not bodies, not relationships, not dreams. Sometimes suffering has no villain behind it; it’s simply the collateral damage of life in a downward spiraling world. Second, we don’t like admitting it, but wisdom is often the child of yesterday’s bad decisions. Some pain is self-inflicted. Some is thrown at us by others' reckless choices.
Finally, God sometimes allows suffering for purposes bigger than we can see.
When asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” regarding a man born blind, the Teacher rejected the false dilemma. The issue wasn’t blame; it was purpose. “This happened that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Some pain is permitted not to crush us, but to reveal something: God’s strength, God’s grace, God’s glory, or even a needed transformation in us.
This past Christmas was my first without my favorite aunt. After 66 years of her laughter, stories, and warmth, the silence felt wrong. I found myself replaying the last voicemail she left me to hear her voice again.
Looking back, it seems her death carried all three layers of suffering: (1) A broken world: Bodies fail, and eventually death finds us all. (2) Human choices: Some decisions she made years ago compromised her health long before her time. (3) Divine permission with a purpose: God used her passing to remind me that my own future is shaped by choices I’m making now, and that stewardship of my health is not optional.
Her death hurt. It still does. But it also speaks: Life is fragile. Steward it well. Don’t wait until the body forces what wisdom would gladly give. So, I’m making a promise to take better care of myself while I still have time. Pain may be a harsh teacher, but it rarely wastes a lesson.
