Suffering

There is something to be said for suffering.
We live in an age where we are so blessed that we can medicate when we need to.
Headaches, childbirth, dentistry, fevers, surgeries...
But as a result, we've grown to expect less suffering in life - and in death.
We even attempt to medicate heartbreak.
We want to dull the pain - to mask the symptoms...
Don't get me wrong - i've downed more than my fair share of advil - & dealt with the annoyance and frustration of suffering with migraines that hurt more than natural childbirth. i've given tylenol or motrin, cough candies... & while i understand that pain is not fun - & yes, i do try to avoid it - or seeing my children in it -.

- Some days - i wonder if we're trading off something precious when we make it our goal to avoid suffering completely.

i've heard people say, 'Why would she choose to suffer like that?' almost as if it's an annoyance - when women have chosen to give birth without pain medication.
More & more i'm hearing murmers that we shouldn't allow the sick, the struggling, the dying to suffer either. That euthanasia is a more merciful option than the sometimes long, drawn out, painful process of death...
i remember when i was having my first baby. They offered me 'something for the pain' & i remember thinking - 'If this hurts *me* this much, imagine how much it must hurt her little frame, being squished like that... ' i felt like we were a team & that if i could, i'd like to just keep that pain that was connecting us in this little triumph of childbirth.
i don't know if death is anything like childbirth - but in my naivete, i imagine that it is. The groaning expectancy - the emerging of a little being from the secret place where it was formed, into new territory where all of it's limbs, muscles, senses have new purposes.
i believe that the parenthesis around life on earth should be placed by the Creator. And that the suffering within those parentheses might just serve as the punctuation that makes that life readable. i wonder if suffering exercises spiritual muscles that we might not even know that we need, until we have finished our life here...
i know - i'm ignorant on the whole subject - & i know it sounds like i'm oblivious to the suffering and pain of others. i'm trying not to be. i do believe that we need to be compassionate and merciful to the sick and the dying, but i think that euthanasia is a dangerous option. Both for the one choosing to die & in that moment devaluing the life that they still have, and for the society that facilitates such thinking. i believe that euthanasia can become self perpetuating in that then when someone gets sick, they then feel like they are a burden & are expected to request death since others in their same position made that choice. Fearing that they would be deemed selfish if they choose *life*, feeling forced to choose the same 'selfless' act...
Rather than casting off the unwanted burden of suffering - and fighting for euthanasia to be on the forefront of treatments for the most vulnerable among us, what if we cared for and built up the suffering - thanking them for giving us the opportunity to serve. Encouraging them in that difficult, agonizing transition to 'finish well'... Medicating their suffering - without medicating to obliterate the suffering ones...

we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.