In his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (Updated Edition, 112-115), Peter Scazzero shares eight fruits that can come in unique ways through suffering. As you and those around you continue to deal with Covid-19 as well as trials of many other kinds, prayerfully consider this list. Which fruits are you experiencing right now? Which have you experienced in past times of pain? Which do you feel led to ask God to bear in you even today? What would you add to this list?
- A greater level of brokenness – This brokenness brings with it humility, and ultimately frees us from judging others. We are far more gracious with ourselves and with others after suffering.
- A greater appreciation for Holy Unknowing (Mystery) – We become more content with what we don’t know about God. Our season of suffering and the way it prompted us to question God shapes us into people who become more comfortable with questions, and better able to sit contentedly not having all the answers.
- A deeper ability to wait for God – The waiting (and wailing) better enables us to live in the present, and to experience peace now while we wait for God’s work in the future.
- A greater detachment – “[Suffering], more than anything else, cuts off our attachments to who we think we ought to be, or who we falsely think we are. Layers of our counterfeit self are shed. Something truer, that is Christ in and through us, slowly emerges.”
- Suffering transforms our attitude toward ourselves. It humbles us and removes unrealistic self-regard and pride. It helps us see how dependent upon God we’ve always been. It reveals weaknesses within us (because it sometimes brings out the worst in us).
- Suffering changes our relationship to the good things in our lives. We may see how some things have become too important, or we may see how some things have become not important enough. Suffering gives us greater clarity about what is truly good in life.
- Suffering can strengthen our relationship to God as nothing else can. While pain can turn us from God, it can also make our relationship with God more genuine. Suffering drives us to pray as we’ve never before prayed.
- Suffering is almost a prerequisite if we are going to be of much use to others. Adversity makes us far more compassionate than we would have otherwise been. We are equipped to accompany others in their suffering because of our suffering.
