The doorway of suffering (Part 4)

There is nothing that brings you into reality more than suffering. Difficult things are a sibling of suffering — things like fasting, friction, hard work. At their core, suffering and difficulty imply a level of sacrifice. Sacrifice implies letting go, but for some, it implies an exchange for something better.

Fasting makes eating all the better. Long-suffering begets devotion. Marriage offers unconditional love and security. Raising kids produces the next generation of humans. We endure suffering or inconvenience or hunger for what lies on the other side, something bigger than ourselves. It’s how humans are wired.

This is Logotherapy, a theory that Victor Frankl developed before, during, and after the Holocaust. “‘He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how,’ could be the guiding motto for all [Holocaust] prisoners” (1). The same is true for how we endure hardship this life.

I began this series with the visceral experience of standing in decaying homes, and mapped decay onto the nature of all things that exist in time. Eternity, however, is not subject to the same decay. Hope in eternity offers more than escapist ideals but an identity, a sense of belonging, and a vocation.

Every human born into this world will experience a unique suffering. Perhaps it results in a decaying apartment unit, perhaps it looks like a decaying body. Some humans start their life at a severe disadvantage, some will have their lives upended in the middle, and some remain oblivious and never quite name their suffering. Somehow, however, every human is facing as much as they can handle.

Reconciling why people experience different types suffering is a question I cannot answer. What I do know is that we all live in a decaying realm called time that is prone to emptiness, which brings us all to the same question: Is there a bigger why to live for that can help us bear any how?

To the Christian, suffering is a form of death — death to the world, death to sin, death to self — but it is also a doorway into something better. To the Christian, eternity is as real as time and offers identity, belonging, vocation, and hope that can informs how we exist in time.