Week Forty-Three: Suffering, Death & Dying. October 22 – The Gift Hidden in Suffering
The truth that many people never understand is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt. Thomas Merton
Gregg’s Reflection
Suffering, death and dying are something we will all experience. Deep wisdom is revealed in our suffering, and in our time of dying. Kathleen Singh, in her 20 years working with hospice patients, observed healing and a path home everyone went through, healing splits from childhood. Even those who did not embrace a deeper spiritual journey found this path in hospice.
For much of my early life, I thought I could outwork, outfight, or outmaneuver pain. As an Enneagram 8, suffering felt like weakness, and I believed weakness was something to be conquered. When failures came—whether in business, health, or ministry—I resisted them with all my strength. But over time, I discovered that resistance only deepened the wound.
It was in moments of collapse, when projects fell apart and health gave way, that I began to see suffering differently. I realized that suffering does not mean God has abandoned me; rather, it becomes the place where God can meet me most intimately. Pain strips away illusions of control and self-sufficiency, and in the empty space left behind, I found myself leaning more deeply on the One who holds me.
The paradox of the cross is that God allows suffering but also transforms it. What feels like humiliation can open the way to humility. What feels like brokenness can open the heart to compassion for others. And what feels like despair can be the seedbed of a hope not based on circumstances, but on God’s sustaining presence.
I would not have chosen suffering, but I can now see its hidden gift. Through it, I am being reshaped into someone a little more patient, a little more tender, and perhaps a little more useful to God. It is here, in the hollow of His hand, that I discover a love that does not protect me from pain, but sustains me through it.
Scripture
We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.
Romans 5:3–4
Ancient Quotes
Modern Quotes
Dying is the opportunity for profound healing. It is the final movement of the soul toward wholeness, a return to the ground of our being.
Kathleen Dowling Singh, The Grace in Dying, p. 121
The Path Home: Healing Dualisms
1st Dualism: First and primary separation by the developing psyche, between self and other. Creates experience of separation.
2nd Dualism: Distinction made in the developing mind between now and then; with it arises the sense of time and mortality, evolves into fear of death.
3rd Dualism: Boundary placed by the developing psyche between the body and the mind: child places the locus of identification in the mind.
4th Dualism: Strongly placed boundary between acceptable and unacceptable parts of the self; Jung defines it as between the persona and the shadow.
Kathleen Singh, Grace In Dying, Glossary. She notes that these splits are healed in reverse order.
The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.
Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain
Journaling Prompts
- When has suffering in your life become an unexpected teacher?
- What illusions or defenses has pain stripped away in you?
- How might you open your heart to see the hidden gift within your current trials?
- Where do you sense God’s sustaining presence in the midst of your pain today?
Go deeper into this week’s theme:
Read the full Week 43 Reflection: Suffering/ Death & Dying