#suffering

For many, the search for Jesus is initiated from experiencing an event in life so powerful, it awakens the dragons of faith; from pain so deep, it calls on the hidden fears of the soul in an effort to survive. For others it means a serious personal life survey that ultimately forces the confrontation with the futility, anesthetics, and despair in their lives. ↗

— W. Scott Lineberry

#faith #fear #futility #healing #religion

Oh, with my pathetic, earthly, Euclidean mind, I know only that there is suffering, that none are to blame, that all things follow simply and directly from one another, that everything flows and finds its level - but that is all just Euclidean gibberish, of course I know that, and of course I cannot consent to live by it! What do I care that none are to blame and that I know it - I need retribution, otherwise I will destroy myself. And retribution not somewhere and sometime in infinity, but here and now, on earth, so that I see it myself. I have believed, and I want to see for myself, and if I am dead by that time, let them resurrect me, because it will be too unfair if it all takes place without me. Is it possible that I've suffered so that I, together with my evil deeds and sufferings, should be manure for someone's future harmony? I want to see with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion, and the murdered man rise up and embrace his murderer. I want to be there when everyone suddenly finds out what it was all for. ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#faith #suffering #faith

Ann: How does God’s character fit into things that seem totally against his character? ↗

— K. Howard Joslin

#gods-goodness #suffering #trials #faith

Breaking a sweat through our difficulties minimized the likelihood of a crippling injury to our faith. ↗

— K. Howard Joslin

#questions #suffering #trials #faith

That morning set in motion a series of events that caused me to wrestle with questions of God’s goodness. ↗

— K. Howard Joslin

#god-s-goodness #suffering #trials #faith

Judged by the normal standards of human affairs, the lives of men and women of God may look overburdened with suffering, and even inconclusive. ↗

— Eknath Easwaran

#suffering #faith

Let me have a faithful account of all that concerns you; I would know everything, be it ever so unfortunate. Perhaps by mingling my sighs with yours I may make your sufferings less, for it is said that all sorrows divided are made lighter. ↗

— Héloïse d'Argenteuil

#love #sorrow #suffering #faith

I am the chosen of the Lord, for who He loveth, so doeth He chastiseth. But I be durn if He dont take some curious ways to show it, seems like. ↗

— William Faulkner

#god #suffering #faith

Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for a moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed: that all this must fall from them in the end, and if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched. And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover. The life to themselves and their families stands between them and the recognition of their need; He makes that life less sweet to them. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#suffering #family

To identify with others is to see something of yourself in them and to see something of them in yourself--even if the only thing you identify with is the desire to be free from suffering. ↗

— Melanie Joy

#factory-farming #food #identifying #meat #people