Inspirational Quotes on Suffering

“The suffering at such times [of bereavement] can be great, I know. But it is somehow comforting to learn, even through suffering, how large and powerful love is.”

“Confident hope breeds inward joy. The man who knows that his hope of glory will never fail him because of the greater love of God, which he has tasted, that man will hear music at midnight; the mountains and the hills will break forth before him into singing wherever he goes. Especially in times of tribulation he will be found "rejoicing in hope of the glory of God." His profoundest comfort will often be enjoyed in his deepest affliction, because then the love of God will specially be revealed in his heart by the Holy Ghost, whose name is "the Comforter". Then he will perceive that the rod is dipped in mercy, that his losses are sent in fatherly love, and that his aches and pains are all measured out with gracious design. In our affliction God is doing nothing to us which we should not wish for ourselves if we were as wise and loving as God is. Oh friends! you do not want gold to make you glad, you do not even need health to make you glad; only get to know and feel divine love, and the fountains of delight are unsealed to you -- you are introduced to the highest joy!”

“Sorrow is a sanctuary as long as self is kept outside. [...] let us not foster, embrace, rekindle and indulge our grief. For then our sorrow is a selfish and luxurious fiction, a ground in which the Holy Spirit will not dig.”

“Holy Suffering "Choosing to suffer means that there must be something wrong with you, but choosing God's will - even if it means you will suffer - is something very different...and no saint should ever dare to interfere with the lesson of suffering being taught in another saint's life...the people used to strengthen us are never those who sympathize with us; in fact, we are hindered by those who give us sympathy, because sympathy only serves to weaken us...Jesus said self-pity was of the devil (Matthew 16:21-23: 'Get thee behind me, Satan!') Look at God's incredible waste of His saints, according to the world's judgement. God seems to plant His saints in the most useless places...Jesus never measured His life by how or where He was of greatest use. God places His saints where they will bring the most glory to Him and we are totally incapable of judging where that may be.”

“No wise forward look can ignore the possibility of many sorrows and the certainty of some. Hope has ever something of dread in her eyes. The road will not be always bright and smooth, but will sometimes plunge down into grim cations, where no sunbeams reach. But even that anticipation may be calm. "Thou art with me" is enough. He who guides into the gorge will guide through it. It is not a cul de sac, shut in with precipices, at the far end; but it opens out on shining tablelands, where there is greener pasture.”

“A thousand sorrows prepares a man to preach.”

“Suffering has the power to expose what you've been trusting in all along. If you lose your hope when your physical body fails, maybe your hope wasn't really in your Savior after all.”

“Durch das Leid hindurch, nicht am Leid vorbei, geht der Weg zur Freude.”

“Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear. To be a Christian one must take up his cross, with all its difficulties and agonizing and tension-packed content, and carry it until that very cross leaves its mark upon us and redeems us to that more excellent way which comes only through suffering.”