Stress-Reducing Belief #5: The Meaning of Suffering

Hi there, Pam Coburn-Litvak here.

Stress Absorbing Belief #5 is:  I will accept every event in my life as having some meaning.

Let’s make an important distinction here: we are not saying that the suffering that comes to us always has inherent meaning. Some things we go through in life are tragic and make no sense.

What I am saying is that, often with God’s help, we can create a sense of meaning and purpose from our suffering.

Jewish psychiatrist Victor Frankl discovered this great truth during his three years living as a prisoner of war at Auschwitz.

In his excellent book Man's Search for Meaning, he writes: "There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions, as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life....

"Let me cite a clear-cut example: Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else.

“Now how could I help him?

“What should I tell him?

"Well, I refrained from telling him anything, but instead confronted him with the question, 'What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?'

'Oh,' he said, 'for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!' 

“Whereupon I replied, 'You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it is you who have spared her this suffering; but now, you have to pay for it by surviving and mourning her.'

“He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office.

"Suffering ceases to be suffering in some way at the moment it finds a meaning."¹

Seek to understand the meaning and you help alleviate the suffering.

This idea was expressed centuries ago in these words: "In all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."² 

In her excellent book Growing Through Stress, Dr. Kath Donovan writes: “When a friend of mine was killed… at the height of a fruitful ministry, his wife began a ministry to other widows.

“Such overflow ministry does not take away the pain but gives meaning to it.

“It is meaningless pain which can’t be endured.

“Trust believes that there is a meaning even though it is impossible at that time to see what it is.”³

The belief that God works through (though not necessarily causes) all the events in our lives can transform sources of suffering into sources of personal growth.

1. Victor E. Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning (Washington Square Pres, Inc., New York, 1963) pp. 164, 178, 179.

2. Romans 8:28

3. Kath Donovan, Growing Through Stress, p.72 (now out of print.)

Forest fire image by Cameron Strandberg from Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, Canada / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

Wildflower field image by Philip Higuera on ESAL.com

Other images provided by the following Unsplash and Pixabay contributors (in order of appearance): Dennis Degionni, Jeremy Thomas, Clarisse Meyer, Isaac Davis, Justin Cunningham, Stefan Stefancik, Vincent Chin, Aperture Vintage, Dino Reichmuth, Bryan Golf, David Billings, Aaron Burden, Tim Woodson.