Suffering

Whether I want to be experiencing it or not, I’m learning about suffering. Suffering is a necessary part of life. Sometimes it’s self-inflicted suffering, like when you eat too many brownies and then you are totally sick, and sometimes suffering just comes. Like when you experience the flu. Those are easy examples that most everyone has experienced. You can avoid the suffering of too many brownies but it’s a whole lot harder to avoid the suffering of being sick.

I had my egg retrieval on Sunday for IVF and I feel like I’ve been suffering a lot. It has been a really hard recovery. Honestly, I haven’t been too optimistic about it. The worse I feel, the more negativity I’ve had. I’ve been upset to have to feel so sick. I keep questioning why. Why does it have to be so hard? Why do I NEED to go through this type of suffering? When will the pain end for me?

I’ve been pondering why Jesus Christ suffered for me. If he suffered for me but I have to live through it anyway, then why did he suffer for me? Couldn’t he have let that experience go? He can’t remove my suffering. This is something I just have to live through. So why did he do it?

A scripture came to mind. Alma 7:12

He will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.

Succor = assistance and support in times of hardship and distress. Give assistance or aid to. Relief, aid, help.

He lived through my experience of physical suffering not because he is going to take it away, I still have to live through it. He lived through it so he may know how to succor me. Today that looked like helping me find enough peace in a moment to fall asleep and take a nap. I had been crying really hard just a few minutes before. I wasn’t in an emotionally good place to take a nap. I was really struggling. But I was able to calm down and fall asleep. Once I woke up I was able to face this just a little bit better. It seems little but it was a huge lift for me. He is helping me get through this time of suffering. Some things are just inevitable and we will have to suffer through. It should give us hope that he suffers with us. He knows what we need in a moment to keep us going through the hard and the painful. He knows that today, I needed a nap to regain hope and keep going.

He took on our infirmities to know us better. He wanted to know us so intimately that he would know how to help us. How to lift us up. How to help us feel loved. It is a huge thing that he did for us.

How do we not totally feel loved by that?! Isn’t it so exciting to know that our savior Jesus Christ WANTED to know us well enough to lift us up in our suffering. He WANTED to save us from our sins and our infirmities. I’m so grateful he would do that for me. He did it just to lift me up today. It seems small but it is actually huge for me. It shows me that my savior loves me, enough to suffer with me.