Meaning-Full Suffering

A chapter from my upcoming book The Meaningfull Life

Todd was having a minor dental procedure, and the attending nurse just happened to check his blood pressure.

That’s odd, he thought, why are my numbers so high?

He didn’t think much of it at the time, but a few days later, he had some blood work done just in case.

The results came back, and he got the call while on the golf course. The reason his blood pressure was so high was that only one kidney was functioning. The other one had been eclipsed by cancer. After doing more tests, they found malignant cells popping up in his lungs, hip, and lymph nodes. This was stage four. The doctors gave him about six months to live.

It was at this moment that I truly became his pastor, and he became my friend.

Whether it was the medical intervention or just the sheer grace of God, Todd was able to manage his symptoms well enough to ski. He invited me to come with him to his place in Montana, and he taught me how to weave through the trees. And when the snow melted, we golfed.

We continued to meet every few weeks. Sometimes in my office. Sometimes at a coffee shop. We talked about the God of the Scriptures, the forgiveness of sins, and the life of the world to come. I watched as outwardly Todd was wasting away, but inwardly he was being renewed day by day. His faith shone through, like the light of a candle piercing out of a cracked pot.

Yet, even as his faith was budding, he voiced his most nagging question: Why am I still here?

“I can’t work. I can’t do the things I want to do. I know this cancer is killing me, so why doesn’t God just get on with it and take me now?”

I’m honored that Todd would let me into his internal dialogue. It’s a place where he lets very few people see.

But what is most hidden is also most universal.

Everybody hurts.

Frankl’s Great Contribution: Suffering as a source of meaning

It is here, in the face of unavoidable suffering, that Viktor Frankl’s work glows. Frankl believed that human life was unconditionally meaningful, no matter the circumstances. What made this statement so unusual was that it collided with all the most influential psychologists and philosophers of his day. Sigmund Freud believed suffering had no redemptive quality, but should be avoided at all costs. And Jean Paul Sartre believed that suffering was absurd and just part of the chaos of our accidental existence. But Frankl stood his ground, believing that suffering could even be one of the primary sources of meaning.  

How could this be?

 The truth, according to Frankl, is that, even in suffering, we still have a decision to make: “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” [1]

According to Frankl, we still have a choice, a choice to choose our attitude in the face of suffering. Will we remain hopeful and so let our pain shape and strengthen us, or will we believe the lie that our suffering is meaningless?

It is these decisions, the fact that we have volition and responsibility, that help us see that life is still meaningful. Now, that’s hard to accept and see, especially when we are in pain. Suffering has a way of sucking all our attention and robbing us of our choices. How could we possibly think about the meaning of our decisions when our pain feels audible, a deafening noise.  How could we perhaps see the value of our attitude when it seems like the future is a dark pit?

But Frankl challenges us to believe that we can turn our tragedy into triumph. His encouragement does not come from the austere office of a therapist, but from the lice-infested barracks of Auschwitz. It was here that he challenged his comrades:

“They must not lose hope but should keep their courage in the certainty that the hopelessness of our struggle did not detract from its dignity and its meaning. I said that someone looks down on each of us in difficult hours-a friend, a wife, somebody alive or dead, or a God-and he would not expect us to disappoint him. He would hope to find us suffering proudly-not miserably-knowing how to die.”[2]

In such moments, Frankl sounds more like a preacher than a psychiatrist. He is using everything at his disposal, hoping that his fellow prisoners will grasp the objective meaning in their lives, so that they may remain engaged and motivated to make more of it.

From good psychology to good theology

What Frankl found through human insight, Paul revealed through Divine inspiration, as he wrote these words to the church in ancient Rome:

 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.[3]

Paul says that we can “glory” in our suffering because it is God’s way of changing us for the good. Like with the words of Frankl, such ideas can sound callous. But, like Frankl, Paul is speaking from experience. He suffered in innumerable ways. And even though he would not pray for suffering or want to suffer, he could see how it was shaping him like a master potter throwing clay into a well-formed vase.  As we hold up under the crushing weight of unavoidable pain, we gain a kind of perseverance that can’t be acquired in the entropy of ease. In such perseverance, we grab hold of God and his promises, which produce character and an everlasting hope.  

But what exactly is that hope? Paul goes on to say that our present suffering can’t compare with the glory that God is working in us. And that splendor will not fully be seen until all creation has been emancipated. On that day, not only will we see the loveliness of a rose, free of its thorns, but the beauty of your body and life, shed of its diagnosis. [4]

When Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples, they had a hard time recognizing him. He had been transformed and glorified. It wasn’t until he showed them his wounds that had become scars of love, like a tattoo you get to remember the day you got sober. I wonder if we will wear our scars in the New Earth as a way of remembering what we gained through them: 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.[5]

 If God allows suffering, it is because it will in some way be connected and counteracted by a heavy load of God’s splendor. Whatever this magnificent existence is, it is not a mere ghostly, non-substantive life. It will be a physical restoration and recompense of all that has been lost through suffering.

The Hope of the Quintessential Sufferer: Job

Tucked in the middle of your Bible is the story of the most extreme suffering imaginable. A good and righteous man, named Job, loses everything. His house, wealth, health, and even worse, all his children.

Although the reader knows what has been happening in God’s throne room, Job doesn’t. (And most likely, you, in your suffering, have Job’s perspective from below and not God’s from above.) He’s clueless as to why God would be so cruel. But at the center of this perplexing book, a place where Hebrew poetry often drops clues, Job grabs on to a promise of God that buoys him from the depths of despair to the height of all true hope:

25 I know that my redeemer lives,
    And that in the end he will stand on the earth.
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
    Yet in my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
    with my own eyes—I, and not another.
    How my heart yearns within me![6]

Job finds meaning in his suffering, ultimately in his future resurrection, that his best days are yet to come. His bones that are wasting away and the eyes that are growing dim will be resurrected, restored, and renewed.

This is what I tried to communicate to Todd in my most recent text. He was lamenting that his hip pain is just not going away, and he wonders if his active days are over. I tried to convey to him that I will be his friend and pastor until the end. And one day, we will do all the same things we enjoy, in this world as it is now, or in the physically renewed world to come. The resurrection will restore the mountain where we skied and the fairways that we once walked. And this time, I will be able to keep up with him.

The decisions you still get to make

Every time we suffer a loss, our lives become more limited. In my case, my nagging knee and the arthritis that infests my joints keep me from running and moving the way I want to. The bridges I’ve burned because of my own folly or theirs mean I can’t go back to those people I’ve loved. Pain constricts us. It limits our lives. But whatever has been lost will be found on the Last Day. What is broken and hurts will be fixed and healed.

Until that day, you and I can learn to see the meaningful decisions we have to make. Like Frankl taught, we are still responsible (response-able). We still have things to do. My arthritic knee might mean I can’t play basketball, but I can still adapt to my limitations. Your broken relationships don’t mean you can’t make new ones. And whatever pain you seem to be experiencing in this moment, you can choose to believe that God has an eternal purpose. And, this choice is the one thing that no amount of suffering can take from you.  And that’s one reason that life always remains objectively meaningful.

The Meaningful Decision-Making Tool

In the back of this book, you will find a “Meaningful Decision-Making tool.” The goal of using this tool is to see that you have more meaningful decisions to make, even in your suffering, than you had once thought. Even if this current veil of tears has seemed to rob you in many ways, you can still choose a hopeful attitude based on the resurrection and renewal of all things. Such a choice is one of the greatest gifts to those around you as you turn your tragedy into triumph.

Final Hope for those who Suffer

Ever since Todd’s diagnosis, he has been eating up as much Jesus, Scripture, and spiritual content as he can. Although he has been a Christian for more than two decades, he has never been so hungry for the truth. He reads his Bible daily, devours resources from places like the YouVersion Bible app and The Bible Project, and he watches the TV series about the life of Jesus, “The Chosen,” consistently.  

There’s one scene in that series that he keeps coming back to, never without tears. The writers used their artistic license to craft a dialogue between Jesus and his disciple, James. In the series, James is lame and walks in pain with a crutch. One day, James asks Jesus why he can heal others in Jesus’ name, but he remains sick. Jesus explains to James that this is a test to strengthen James’ faith. And then, as they are about to part ways, Jesus tells him something that Todd struggles to even verbalize. It’s his only hope.

Jesus says, “And James, remember. You will be healed. It’s only a matter of time.”

I’m looking for feedback on my book before it’s published. I'm looking for a few people who would be willing to read my manuscript and give me some feedback before its published. If you are interested in helping me, please email me at sadler85@gmail.com.com

[1] (Frankl, 1984)

[2] (Frankl, 1984, pp. 90,91)

[3] Romans 5:3-4

[4] Romans 8:18-21 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

[5] 2 Corinthians 4:17

[6] Job 19:25-27