Nearly every meaningful conversation I’ve had eventually comes around to this question. From the Christian to the non-Christian, there is a curious wonder about why we must suffer. It goes against the desire to believe in the love and even the existence of God. In both personal and natural disasters we tend to believe God is punishing us for something we did. Many have lost faith in their Creator believing this is His nature.

Rather than turning aside from Him, turn to Scripture and you will find God cares more for us then we care for ourselves.1 His first creative act was to put the world in perfect order and beauty, free from suffering.2 Scriptures further assures us that misery began not with God, but through the rebellion of one individual, namely Satan.3

This event changed the course of the world, but God was so interested in our return to Paradise that He gave His life that we might live.4 The world will soon be renewed into the eternal kingdom He intended.5 It is what we ask for in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done…”6

In the space of time between the realization of this kingdom and our time on earth, however, we still have the problem of pain. Suffering is most often a result of our own personal mistakes that have caused unnecessary grief. We have also polluted our world, tainted our air and oceans and have thus affected our foods. There is no way to tell how the trauma to the earth has also contributed to natural disasters.

God wants us to see our hardships as an opportunity for spiritual growth. In observing this, C.S. Lewis expressed that, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”7

When we feel that hard times fall only on good people, we can be encouraged by the Book of Hebrews:

“…The Lord disciplines everyone He loves; He punishes everyone He accepts as a child.” So accept sufferings like a father’s discipline. God does these things to you like a father correcting his children. You know that all children are disciplined by their fathers.”8

When we feel that God doesn’t understand our suffering we can be comforted by the Apostle Paul’s words to the Philippians:

"In your life together, think the way Christ Jesus thought…He humbled himself by being fully obedient to God, even when that caused His death—death on a cross." 9

Consider the gospel description of the Roman Centurion. He had never heard Christ preach or seen any of His miracles all he did was see Him patiently suffer. This was enough to change his life as he professed without shame:

"This man truly was the Son of God!" 10

Inasmuch as depression has become one of the most common forms of suffering today, the following is an appropriately uplifting Christian story, of how one husband lived through his wife’s difficulties with mental illness and kept his faith in God.11

Philip was an exiled French Duke that married Sophie-Charlotte Wittelsbach. It was his first and last love as he told her once, “I have loved you with the most tender affections on this earth, for I love you with an eternal love because it is a Christian love.” He was well aware that she was slipping into a common family illness of deep depression. He confessed that the burden and struggles of her disease required a husband not only to be much in love with his wife, but more so the Grace of God to bear it.

Phillip tried to bring his wife to Christ on many occasions. He prayed often for her. Once he had seen an inscription on an ancient tomb that read, “Sophronia may you live.” Impressed with the similarity in name, he began to recite these words for his wife hundreds of times a day, “Sophie may you live.” Later he changed the words to, “Sophie, you shall live.”

Her impossible conduct, however, and angry refusals to accept God, lasted for years. Through Philip’s patience and prayer, Sophie was transformed at the age of thirty-six. She and her husband joined Franciscan orders and dedicated their lives to works of charity. She visited the poor for many hours a day and her great depression had given way to a joy she had never known before. Years later, when she had just turned fifty, Sophie presided over a large charity bazaar in Paris. The building suddenly caught fire and the only two exits became jammed with people. Some came to save her, but she refused and instead assisted the women and children.12

A nun who stood by her, seeing the flames coming closer said, “My God what an awful death!”

“Yes,” smiled Sophie quietly, “but think of it, we shall see God in a few minutes.”13

Philip was at the event and tried to remain with his wife. He was pushed out in the madness. The last that was seen of Sophie was her kneeling and comforting a young girl, hiding her face from the horrors of death.

Days later, while recovering in a hospital, Philip was informed of Sophie’s death. His first words were, “Oh God, of course I know that I must not ask you why…” Just then a smile came to him as he resumed the prayer he had said for her many years, “Sophie may you live.” This prayer that later became, “Sophie, you shall live,” now became, “Sophie, you live!”14

In the life of Phillip we see how patient Christian love can bring others to Christ. In the life of Sophie, we see how serving others in Christ can bring about change in our own dispositions. In each of our lives today, we have the opportunity to take every hardship and suffering as a spiritual opportunity to do the same. Then we may look at the horrors of death as Sophie did and come to realize what Saint Paul exclaimed in his letter to the Romans:

“…I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”15

1 Jeremiah 29:11 – For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.
2 Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
3 Genesis 1:2 – The earth was (became) without form and void. The chaos in the second verse of Genesis came about in the rebellion of Satan (described in Isaiah 14:12-14; Ezekiel 28:11-19; Revelation 12:3-4) when the first creative act of God was rejected by his sinful pride and his rebellious actions left nothing behind, but disorder.
4 The Gospel of John 3:16 – For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
5 Revelation 21:5 – And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new…
6 The Lord’s Prayer can be found in the Gospel of Matthew 6:9
7 This is quoted from Lewis’ work, “The Problem of Pain.”
8 Hebrews 12:6-7
9 Philippians 2:5-8
10 The Gospel of Matthew 27:54
11 Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchess_Sophie_Charlotte_in_Bavaria and Fulton Sheen’s Three to Get Married. 1951
12 The Gospel of John 15:12-13 – This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
13 Psalm 42:2 – My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God? The Gospel of Matthew 5:8 – Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Revelation 22:4 – They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
14 2 Corinthians 5:17 – This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
15 Romans 8:18