A reflection on suffering, empathy, and understanding pain.
I suffered, and for a long time I wanted to know why.
I wanted God to explain what He was doing. I wanted some reason that would make the pain easier to accept. There were seasons when I prayed about the same thing until I did not know what else to say. I believed God was there, but that did not mean I understood Him. Sometimes I was angry. Sometimes I was disappointed. There were times when I wondered why He had allowed something He certainly had the power to stop.
I still cannot explain every painful thing that has happened to me, and I do not want to pretend I can. Some questions may stay unanswered in this life.
But I can see something now that I could not see then.
I see hurting people differently.
Years ago, someone could tell me they were struggling and I would feel sorry for them. I cared. I would pray for them. I might try to say something helpful. But sympathy from the outside is different from recognizing pain because you have lived in the same neighborhood.
Now I notice things I once might have missed. I notice when someone says, “I’m fine,” but something about the way they say it tells me they are not. I notice the person who gets unusually quiet. I notice when somebody is laughing with everyone else but seems tired behind the smile. Sometimes I can hear something underneath the words because I know what it is like to say one thing while carrying something else entirely.
I did not learn that from a book.
I learned it by hurting.
Paul wrote:
“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble.”
I used to read that passage mostly as a promise that God comforts us. I still believe that, but now I notice what comes next. The comfort we receive is supposed to make us able to comfort somebody else.
That means what God did for me in a painful season was never meant to end with me.
Suffering has changed the way I talk to people who are hurting. I am much slower now to reach for an explanation. I have heard Christians say things with good intentions that probably made somebody’s pain heavier. “Everything happens for a reason.” “You just have to trust God.” “You need more faith.” Sometimes those words may contain truth, but there are moments when truth delivered without tenderness feels more like a correction than comfort.
I have learned to listen longer.
There are times when somebody does not need me to fix anything. They need someone who can sit with what happened without becoming uncomfortable. They need someone who is not afraid of their grief, their anger, or their questions. They may need somebody who can hear the whole story without rushing them toward the part where everything gets better.
Jesus understands that kind of suffering.
Hebrews says:
“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.”
Christ knows pain from inside human life. He knew rejection. He knew betrayal. He grieved. He became tired. He was falsely accused. He suffered in His body. When I bring pain to Him, I am not talking to someone who has only observed suffering from a distance.
That matters to me more now than it used to.
I also understand people differently because I have learned that pain does not always make us pleasant. Sometimes people who are hurting become quiet. Sometimes they become angry. Sometimes fear makes them controlling. Grief can make a person impatient. Someone carrying more than we know may respond badly to something small because the small thing was never really the whole issue.
That does not excuse sin. Pain does not give any of us permission to hurt other people.
But compassion changes when I realize there may be more happening in someone than what I can see.
I used to be quicker to wonder why someone could not just move on. Now I know that some things do not disappear because you have decided you are finished with them. Some wounds take time. There are losses you learn to carry rather than simply leaving behind. You can be doing well for months and then something small brings a memory back with surprising force.
That does not necessarily mean you have failed to heal.
It means you remember.
Galatians says:
“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”
I understand the word bear differently now too.
Bearing another person's burden is not standing nearby giving advice about how they should carry it. Sometimes it means getting close enough that part of the weight becomes inconvenient to me. It may mean giving somebody time when I had other plans. It may mean listening to the same story again because they are still trying to make sense of it. Sometimes it is a phone call, a prayer, a meal, a quiet room, or simply remembering that a difficult date is coming.
People did those things for me.
Some of them probably have no idea how much it mattered.
I remember people who checked on me without needing anything. I remember the ones who did not try to explain God to me when I was struggling with God. I remember people who gave me room to hurt without making me feel like I was failing spiritually.
I want to become that kind of person.
Maybe that is one of the things God has done with what I suffered.
I have to be careful with that sentence because I do not want to rewrite painful things and call them good. Some things that happen to us are simply wrong. Betrayal is still betrayal. Cruelty is still cruelty. Death is still an enemy. Scripture never asks me to pretend evil became good simply because God brought something useful out of it.
Romans 8:28 says:
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.”
It does not say all things are good.
It says God is still at work.
That distinction matters.
There are things I would still change if God gave me the choice. There are losses I would rather not have known. There are painful seasons I would never volunteer to repeat. But I can also look at myself now and admit that suffering changed the way I see another human being.
It slowed me down.
I judge less quickly than I once did. I listen for what someone may be having trouble saying. When a person tells me they are hurting, I am less interested in finding the right answer and more interested in making sure they know they do not have to carry it alone.
I know now what it feels like to believe God is good while still being confused by what He allowed. I know what it feels like to pray and continue hurting afterward. I know how exhausting it can be when people think you should be better by now. I know what it is like to smile because explaining everything would take more strength than you have that day.
I did not know those things before.
Now I do.
Romans gives us one of the simplest instructions in Scripture:
“Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.”
I used to think the difficult part of that verse was knowing what to say.
It isn't.
Sometimes there is nothing to say.
Weep with them means stay close enough to feel something with them. Do not hurry them. Do not compare their suffering with someone who had it worse. Do not use Scripture to avoid sitting in an uncomfortable moment.
Just be there.
I suffered, and I still cannot tell you why every part of it happened.
But I can tell you what I see now.
I see people I once might have walked past.
I recognize pain I once might have mistaken for anger, distance, or weakness. I hear things in people's voices I did not hear before. I have more patience for wounds that take time.
Maybe I will never know every reason for what I went through.
But I know what I want to do with what I learned.
When I see someone hurting, I do not want to walk past them.
I know what that kind of pain feels like now.