#suffering

Some animal rights activists are demanding vegetarianism, even veganism now, or nothing. But since only 4 or 5 percent of Americans claim to be vegetarians, 'nothing' is the far more likely outcome. I ask these activists to weigh the horrors of Bladen County's industrial farms and the Tar Heel slaughterhouse against the consequences of doing nothing to alleviate the hour-to-hour sufferings of its victims. Is not a life lived off the factory farm and a death humanely inflicted superior to the terrible lives we know they lead and the horrible deaths we know they suffer in Bladen County today? ↗

— Steven M. Wise

#animal-welfare #animals #cafos #factory-farms #suffering

I always wondered what it must be like to lose a twin—if somehow Mary felt it like it was happening to her. If she felt physical pain. ↗

— Francesca Lia Block

#death-and-dying #death-of-a-loved-one #empathetic #empathy #loss

If God causes you to suffer much, it is a sign that He has great designs for you, and that He certainly intends to make you a saint. And if you wish to become a great saint, entreat Him yourself to give you much opportunity for suffering; for there is no wood better to kindle the fire of holy love than the wood of the cross, which Christ used for His own great sacrifice of boundless charity. ↗

— St. Ignatius of Loyola

#saints #suffering #design

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

When words can't make it better, hold my hand and don't let go. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#friendship #grief #hardships #life #richelle

Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process. ↗

— Elisabeth Elliot

#imagination

He who cannot endure the bad will not live to see the good. ↗

— Jennifer Donnelly

#life-lessons #mr-moscowitz #suffering #inspirational

but something always went wrong, and the relationship would end precisely at the moment when she was sure that this was the person with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life. After a long time, she came to the conclusion that men brought only pain, frustration, suffering and a sense of time dragging. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#suffering #life