Pain Vs. Suffering

I posted a few posts back a little bit about my being in process about my theology of suffering. I must admit that I have appreciated reading lots of book by authors, such as Henri Nouwen, Brennan Manning, and Richard Rohr, whom all happen to be Catholic. What I appreciate is the understanding of suffering that they all come from. Lets face it and be honest Catholics do have a well developed theology on suffering, and while I agree with and appreciate much of what I have read. I feel that there is still something missing, and that is the differentiation between pain and suffering.

I have all recently been listening to sermons by the speakers from Nexus, and sermons by Rob Bell on suffering. They have lots of good stuff to say. I still have a few more sermons to listen too and I think I will search out and few more sermons by others.

As I was saying in the first paragraph, I think and please remember that this is still in progress for me, that we need to understand that there is a difference between pain and suffering. Too often we as humans link the two and say they come together. However when we talk about them and describe them we would say that pain is something we feel (aka a feeling/emotion/something physical), and suffering is something we experience, something that happens after and the feeling of pain has occurred. Suffering and pain actually are separate, and do not need to be side by side.

For me the question I am grappling with is since I believe and know that pain and suffering are two separate events then where is the fine line between acknowledging and feeling the pain that comes into our live, or sitting in it to the point that the pain turns into suffering?

Another question is will we let our pain make us bitter, or better? If we choose to become bitter then we are choosing to allow our pain to turn into suffering. In essence we have needlessly chosen to suffer. If we choose the path of BETTER the pain is not nullified and escaped it is acknowledged and then we can ask Jesus ,"okay what next?"

For example - the whole fertility journey has at times for me been a journey that has been filled with suffering because I was becoming very bitter. Now I have chosen to say what next. I want to be better. Being better look like going to the gym and working out, becoming healthy. It also means acknowledging the pain I sometimes feel when it comes. Such as last Sunday "Father's Day", when a lovely woman in our church said that Jeral could join the fathers in line because he was going to be a father some day. For me at that point I burst into tears, and needed to leave the room. I was able to come back and enjoy the festivities after I had allowed my hurt to be felt and seen by others (not that i enjoy that part). Bitterness would have kept me from going back into the room and enjoying all the yummy food.

So I know this is not a complete though process yet, and that is okay. I am a work in progress. As much as I still grapple with where is the line between pain and suffering I also know that if I focus in on never ever crossing over the line then I enter into the arena of legalism. Ultimately in the end I need to stay focused and fixed on Jesus and what He is doing in me and through me, even when I myself do not understand it. Truthfully in the end of all this thinking and wanting to figure it out I am still in many ways a little girl who at the end of the day wants to crawl up into her Heavenly DADA's lap and know He love me.