Redemptive Suffering
The fear of suffering, pain, and death seem like unconquerable mysteries. My time here at CPE [clinical pastoral education] has helped me to understand, via experience, that they are not necessarily things that need to be conquered. No amount of faith excludes us from experience pain, loneliness, and death. Money, power, and other earthly things makes these three experiences even worse. With this in mind, I began to wonder if the words of Qoheleth were not as negative as they appear: “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (Ecc 1:2). Earthly things will pass which also means these things, both good and bad, will pass. Yet this does not ease the blow of the mystery of suffering and death. Even if they pass away they still remain with us our whole lives.
For me, this mystery is one that is only solved by the Cross. The cross is, for me, the foundation of my theology the ministry I do. The cross is the Incarnational moment where love and suffering meet. Love because
TESM