Quotes About Suffering

If there was a God. I would spit in his face for subjecting me to this. If there was a Devil, I would sell my sould to make it end. If there was something Higher that controlled out f***ing fates, I would tell it to take my fate and shove it up its fucking ass. Shove it hard and far, you motherf***er. Please end. Please end. Please end.

Ask them, then. ...Ask them when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask them when their engines stop. Ask them, when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You want to know something? They won't want us to ask them. They'll just want us to get it.

Real war was the thousands of Chinese refugees dying of cholera in the sealed stockades at Pootung, and the bloody heads of Communist soldiers mounted on pikes along the Bund. In a real war no one knew which side he was on, and there were no flags or commentators or winners. In a real war there were no enemies.

Without concrete signs of divine presence in the lives of the poor, the gospel becomes simply an opiate; rather than liberating the powerless from humiliation and suffering, the gospel becomes a drug that helps them adjust to this world by looking for "pie in the sky.

Suffering naturally gives rise to doubt. How can one believe in God in the face of such horrendous suffering as slavery, segregation, and the lynching tree? Under these circumstances, doubt is not a denial but an integral part of faith. It keeps faith from being sure of itself. But doubt does not have the final word. The final word is faith giving rise to hope.

One of the most powerful shocks of the Middle Passage is the collapse of our tacit contract with the universe–the assumption that if we act correctly, if we are of good heart and good intentions, things will work out. We assume a reciprocity with the universe. If we do our part, the universe will comply. Many ancient stories, including the Book of Job, painfully reveal the fact that there is no such contract, and everyone who goes through the Middle Passage is made aware of it.

He was conscious that his thoughts and feelings were the same utterly unoriginal torments of billions like him: the bewildering indifference of the universe, the pointlessness of suffering, the inescapable obligation to abide with it.

Some days I want to put my head in the sand. There's too much pain out there, there's too much that scares me. But I wouldn't be able to breathe with my head in the sand, and I wouldn't be able to hear or see or smell. The world is a lovely place...despite the sadness it holds for each of us, despite the terrible things we do.

What a sight the poor make in the moonlight!

Two whores who finally found something to mother. A guy could write a book about it, he thought bitterly, call it From Hair To Maternity . It would probly be a very long book. Whores did not produce as fast as rabbits.

But if the Christus Victor motif is not tethered to penal substitution, we might conclude that human beings are merely victims of sin, held in thrall by evil powers.

Little world, full of scars and gashes, ripened with another's pain, Your flowers feed on carrion--so do your birds; Men feed on each other because you taught them life was cheap, Flowing from your endless womb without pain or understanding. No midwife caresses your flesh or bathes clean your progeny, Life spurts from you, little world, and you regard it with disdain. Only bruised men sense your cruelty, men whose life has lost its meaning.

still have scars that need healing, wounds that may never completely go away. And I still have a lot of unanswered questions about the suffering I've seen. But at least I'm open and willing to have God show me the way. I listen closely to what he has to tell me. I know he helped me stay alive for a reason, and each day I strive to live out that reason.

don't want to be revealed as a source of suffering and misery, preferring to see men and women directing their anger at one another or blaming God. On

People can sometimes become too fundamental and dogmatic regarding pharmaceuticals. Yes, pharmaceuticals are largely developed by "Big Pharma" with profit in mind, but the end result is that they often reduce suffering in the world.

And as for the gods, I've never been satisfied by any of the answers that are given. If there really is a benevolent loving god, why is the world full of rape and torture? Why do we even have pain? I was taught pain is to let us know when our body is breaking down. Well, why couldn't we have a light? Like a dashboard light? If Chevrolet could come up with that, why couldn't God? Why is agony a good way to handle things?

From eternity past God planned for his ministers to suffer as they proclaim the gospel in the face of hostile opposition from Satan, sin, death, and hell.

Suffering always reveal idols of the heart.

God brings us low, even to the point of death, in order to bring us up again.

He brings eventual well-being for those who turn to Him, regardless of any hardship He may allow, but eventual calamity for those who reject Him, regardless of how well their immediate life may be going.

Suffering related to circumstances beyond my control, suffering related to consequences of my besetting sin, and suffering caused by others who refused to see their own sin. In all these instances, the Lord has been at work, refining my focus upon personal holiness, amplifying my ministry through very humbling experiences, and reminding me repeatedly to extend grace not just to the gracious but to those who lack a grace I took too long to come to myself.

Joy] does not ignore pain in the world, in another's life or in one's own life. Rather, it goes deeper, seeing confidence in God—and for Christians, in Jesus Christ—as the reason for joy and a constant source of joy.

On the way out of the theater, I brushed away the tears, worried that my friend would notice. Suddenly he turned to me. "What a waste of a life!" he snapped. "All that suffering for nothing!" His comments shocked me. It was the first time I realized that my feelings toward religion might be the opposite of what others experienced.

And she can be found in the hearts of those who feel that, above almost all the saints, she is the one who most understands what it means to be a human being who suffers and rejoices in everyday life. Her life—at once simple and complex, clear and opaque, childlike and mature, humble and bold, joyful and sorrowful—has spoken to millions of people. It spoke to my friend David. And it spoke to me, from the first moment I met her, in that little movie theater in Connecticut.