Is There Value in Suffering?
Last summer, when I was in the midst of a severe depressive episode, a good friend told me that my suffering had value, that she was sure that my angst and tears would serve some purpose. “This isn’t all wasted, “she said, “suffering has redemptive power.” She sent me an excerpt of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on suffering, “It is suffering, more than anything else, which clears the way for the grace which transforms human souls. Suffering, more than anything else, makes present in the history of humanity the powers of Redemption.”