Refusing to Suffer is Refusing to Live

The topic of suffering has come up a lot lately and I just read the best article written by a paralytic girl, Chelsea Zimmerman entitled, "Refusing to Suffer is Refusing to Live."

A bit:

God's ways are not our ways; he created us and alone knows what is best for us. He is infinitely good and eternally seeks our well-being, so we can be sure
that whatever he allows to befall us is never purposeless, but ultimately for our benefit and the good of others.

The Culture of Death is rooted in an inability to meaningfully connect with suffering. Trained by the popular culture to believe that pleasure alone translates into "living life to the fullest," we try to avoid pain rather than move through it, which means we can never triumph over it or transcend it.

Before I became Catholic I'd never heard the term "redemptive suffering." It's the notion of offering your sufferings to Christ, uniting them to His sacrifice, for the good of the body. When someone is suffering you will often hear Catholics tell them to "offer it up." That is to say, offer your sacrifice to God- ask Him to unite it to the sacrifice of Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ. That gives a purpose- a Holy mission if you will- for your suffering. It's hard to wrap your mind around, but I have fallen in love with this notion. This website explains it this way-

Our imitation of Him and our gifts to Him, though they are nothing without His Sacrifice, build up the Body of Christ if they are joined to His sufferings:

I Corinthians 12:26 And if one member suffer any thing, all the members suffer with it: or if one member glory, all the members rejoice with it.

Colossians 1:23b-24 ...whereof I Paul am made a minister. Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His body, which is the church:

Now, is Paul saying that Christ's sufferings and Sacrifice weren't enough? Is he "taking away from Christ" by saying that we are to "fill up" those things that are "wanting" in His sufferings? No, of course not. He is saying, though, that we are One Body, that we co-operate with God in profound ways ( I Corinthians 3:9 "For we are God's coadjutors [co-workers, assistants]..."), and that, in an inscrutable
way, our sufferings benefit one another.

We actually help Jesus in His redemption of the world by giving to Him our sufferings to build up the Body of Christ. Think of how we are moved by those who suffer for us. We are touched when we think of what our parents sacrificed to give us, when we think of stories of people who give kidneys to strangers or risk their lives to save someone else. Christ Himself said that "greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Well, just as we are moved by sacrificial love when it is offered to us, the Father is moved by our offered-up sufferings when they are offered along with the Passion and Sacrifice of Jesus.