THE ART OF SUFFERING (AN ESSAY)
Suffering has always been a tough concept for me to grasp. The idea of pain and its affliction on innocent people bothered me the most. I found myself asking the age-old question, “Why do good people suffer?” I grew up in the church and every Sunday my pastor would preach about an omnipresent God that created the stars and the moon, the mountains and seas, the animals, and well… me. Having that personal relationship with God was key to my understanding of faith. He wasn't just this guy in the clouds that made everything and just sat back watching the games play but he personally made me and knew me before I was even conceived (Jeremiah 1:5). It was hard for me to believe that God could create me, draw me to him, and create a world for me to live in, to just… hurt me. This feeling became even more complex as I got older and began to learn more.
When I was in college, I skated around suffering for the most part. I got great grades, I had a good job on campus, I was respected and well on my way to becoming something great after college. Everyone said that I was a shoo-in to be the next big thing on Broadway. People spoke fame and riches into my future like they could see through a crystal ball. I started to believe it after the millionth person said, “You’re gonna be famous one day.” I graduated and the plan was to head to California and take on the world. That dream died quickly when family drama and home issues came into play. I went from being this perfect grades having, big dream flaunting somebody to a forgotten and depressed college grad living in my aunt’s house contemplating my life’s worth. I even envisioned a world without me, what if I just gave up, what if I just walked out the door and took my life, would people care? That’s when the darkness set in.
You’d think that once I left that environment that things would get better… nope. I found myself dating people who never really gave a crap about me. Pining for people’s love and attention, using sin to fill a hole I know sin wasn’t supposed to fill. I found a full-time job where I was a step closer to my dream, but ended up even more depressed and being used for mild pay. I walked into work every day with no real desire or ambition, the focus was getting out as soon as possible. I phoned it in every day, got used for my talents every day, and fell down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out whether I wasn’t doing enough or whether the people in power didn’t care as long as a warm body was doing the work and stayed quiet about the toxic work environment.
I was empty. Hopping from love interest to love interest, in my mind and in the world. Lonely at dates and checking off some box. I felt like after while I was just going on dates because I just didn’t want to be alone. I felt like I had lost real contact with most people from college. We were grown and went our separate ways. I even started to think they hated me. I would text people and not hear back for weeks, some never responded. I wondered if I had scared them off. Was I not enough for them anymore? Did I do something to hurt them? The thoughts just spiraled.
After months of feeling lonely and fighting for friends and lovers that couldn't give a fig about me, my life hit rock bottom. I got in an accident on an… electric scooter, sorry, nothing cool. Got a concussion, ended up in the ER, emailed the doctor’s letter to my boss just to get a call hours later saying I was being laid off because of the organization’s financial struggles. I felt at that moment that I had mastered the art of suffering. I was knee-deep in anxious thoughts, lonely, waddling around with symptoms from a concussion, and now I had to figure out how I was gonna pay rent and all the other bills that I could barely pay because I didn’t make anywhere near what I should have. I cried, I called my Mom and she talked me off the ledge but I had no idea of the suffering that was to come.
I went without a job from September 2019 till January 2020. I applied everywhere I could and thought I’d hear something… nothing. I prayed and cried. Lied about my circumstances to save face and then suddenly, the hole got deeper, I was food poisoned and it led to months of uncertainty until I was diagnosed with microscopic colitis and IBS… great. I lost lots of weight, went nights without eating anything for the fear of hurting myself more, and cried on my knees begging God to give me a way out. I asked him why, what did I do, was it punishment? Was it a test? Was my life even worth it?
I sunk to the lowest place I had ever been in my life. For the first time in my life, I wondered, will I ever live out my dream? I gave up… until I opened the Bible and something happened, I started to find answers.
I ran across Psalm 119:71, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.”
The idea of being comfortable with affliction confused me. I begged God to lift the pain away but at that moment, I started to wonder, was the pain a gift? Could this suffering had been a way for me to find my way back to God?
I spent most of my childhood in the church singing and dreaming of being a pastor of some great ministry. My Mom always says that my favorite song as a kid was, “God’s will is what I want for my life.” I realized that I had lost that desire. I made the focus myself, my ambitions, my dreams, my worldly desires. Could God have used this pain to redirect me? I started to wonder, could this be my chance to align with him again, to find that childlike faith I once had when I looked up at the stars and thought, “Wow, God made all that, with his bare hands?” I wanted my dreams to be his dreams for me. I wanted to desire what he desired for me. I wanted his Holy Spirit to speak to me and I actually listen. That was the turning point.
This is probably the point of the story where you expect me to say that things have gotten better. Well… sorta. I’m still quite skinny, I still deal with anxiety, and I’m still searching for that perfect job. I deal with colitis symptoms every day but I’ve gotten better. I still have anxious thoughts but now I have the Word of God to remind me that there’s more. This is a season of suffering has taught me so much. It’s taught me that life isn’t perfect, and there will be struggles, I mean look at Job. He suffered way more than me and yet his faith was so strong. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning (Psalm 30:5).”
As long as there is breath in my lungs, I have the opportunity to live out the life God has destined for me. Suffering is a pivotal part of my life story because it taught me to trust God. It taught me to call on him first when fear sets in.
Even Jesus told Peter that Satan had requested to bring him suffering but that he would pray for him, “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. (Luke 22:31-32).”
Life has its suffering, but God will always be there for you. The suffering may bring you closer to him if you let it. You are not alone. If it wasn’t for God, my mother, and my close friends that stayed by my side, I don’t know where I’d be. Trust God and surround yourself with people that lift you. Don’t use this life to live up to people’s expectations. Lord knows, I wasted so much time trying to impress people and keep friends that I needed to lose. Your life is about your relationship with God and what he wants to do through you. This is the first day of the rest of your life. Take a breath, lift your eyes to God, and realize that great things are still to come. This season will serve its purpose but on the other side of this storm is a stronger and wiser you, ready to live out God’s will and change the world.
Suffering is not the end of your life, it’s only the beginning of something greater.
© Darius M. Buckley
