Suffering

Friends,
Why do we experience suffering and pain?
1. God built our bodies so that pain can be warning e.g. a fever or a stomach ache
2. We can experience pain and suffering if we drift from God.
3. Pain and suffering can reveal what is in our heart.
4. As we go through life we are slowly crucified with Jesus Christ. As we age our aches and pains multiply. We cannot escape crucifixion.
5. I have noticed a strange oddity. Look at the little girl in the photo above. People who are in pain and suffering seem strangely at peace. It is like they transcended this mortal realm.
6. Of course, as we age pain and suffering take us to the edge of eternity.
7. It seems to me that people who suffer the most, God loves the most.
8. The beatitudes are mainly about suffering.
9. Pain paves the way for our graceful end.
10. God suffers with us, no one has suffered more than God. He sent His Son to die for us.
11. God's comfort is greater than our suffering. Paul said he would rather suffer than be without God.
12. By seeing suffering we can comfort other human beings. In suffering crisis we find one another.
13. God can turn suffering to good. For example, the horrible, evil Holocaust made the European Jews realize they needed to return to their homeland Israel.
14. Suffering makes us realize we live in a corrupted, broken, lost and evil world.