"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."

~ Isaac Asimov

When you find a redemptive explanation for your suffering, you move from victim to wounded healer.

~ Donald Miller

“No one heals himself by wounding another.” 

~ St. Ambrose of Milan

"We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." 

— C.S. Lewis

"The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you... you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for."

~ Bob Marley

“I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'”

~ Muhammad Ali

There is a way in which a fish swimming around in a fishbowl knows nothing at all about water. Because water is so much a part of the fish's life. If you want the fish to really understand water, you have to take the fish out of the fishbowl and say, "Look, that's water."

~ Unknown

Suffering

Pope John Paul II, who has ruled the Roman Catholic church for more than 26 years—knows that in his public experience of suffering lies enormous power. More than 20 years ago, after recovering from the pistol shot that almost took his life in front of St. Peter's in 1981, John Paul declared that suffering, as such, is one of the most powerful messages in Christianity. "Human suffering evokes compassion," he wrote in 1984, "it also evokes respect, and in its own way it intimidates."

In 1994, as age and infirmity began to incapacitate John Paul publicly, he told his followers he had heard God and was about to change the way he led the church. "I must lead her with suffering," he said. "The pope must suffer so that every family and the world should see that there is, I would say, a higher gospel: the gospel of suffering, with which one must prepare the future."

Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering...The love of God did not protect His own Son...He will not necessarily protect us--not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.

~ Elisabeth Elliot

Then the time came when the risk it took
To remain tight in a bud was more painful
Than the risk it took to blossom.

~ Anais Nin