"If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete." ~Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
The
topic of why people suffer has been discussed since the creation of mankind.
From our first parents, down to the current day, suffering reaches all. Whether
wealthy or poor, bond or free, each will experience some difficult or tragic
circumstance. Women die in
childbirth, babies are born with defects, and young and innocent children are
kidnapped and killed. People die tragically of crimes, accidents, cancer,
leukemia, and from a variety of genetic diseases over which they have no
control. Earthquakes and natural disasters kill thousands of innocent people.
Humans battle depression, loneliness, and all kinds of mental challenges and
disorders. Marriages breakup, and children are abused in families. All suffer
adversity of one kind or another, but there are some individuals who seem to
suffer extraordinary trials in mortality.
Why?
This is the question most often asked by
those in the midst of suffering. There are as many individual types of
suffering as there are individuals that have lived and will live on this earth.
There are also variations in the answers to the question of ‘why?’ The answer that seems to fit for every person
and for all types of suffering is simple in its complexity. Each of us has much
to learn in this mortal state, and suffering and overcoming is the way we learn
best. Both good and bad things happen to all of mankind, so instead of
simply asking why bad things happen to good people, one could dig deeper and
ask the more basic question, “Why do things happen at all?”
If a
person has never suffered, he has never lived! Suffering And Surviving explores the means of growth from adversity by examining the lives of
Melodee, a two-time cancer survivor; Joan, an abused child; Craig, a religious
person whose children rebelled; Kimberly, The wife of a former pornography
addict; and finally Elizabeth, a righteous person who was challenged by tragedies
throughout her life.
