What is the value of suffering?

by jabberwock 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Lady Lee

  IMHO

  I don't know that suffering has no redeeming value. For those of us with strength to overcome it I think the siffering helps us to find that strength. A few years ago I wrote a poem that I still believe is what suffering did for me. Of course I have no idea who I would be if I had grown up in a family where there was no abuse.

  I Am

  I am my father's daughter
  And I am my own creation.

  Through the pain he inflicted
  I found strength to endure.

  Through the anger and fear
  I found courage to confront.

  Through indifference and neglect
  I found inner strength and self-reliance.

  Through his constant criticism
  I found the desire to learn and rise above.

  Through threats of death and hate
  I found the ability to survive and thrive.

  I am my father's daughter
  And I am my own creation.

  It took me years to realize the lessons learned. I spent many years in therapy learning that as a child I had developed many skills to survive the years of abuse. But I did learn and those strengths are still there
• 

  IMHO

  Lady Lee,

  I'm glad you came through, and thank-you for sharing your poem and appreciate you acknowledging that not everyone "has the strength".

  I would agree (for some at least) strength can be found and lessons learnt. But as with the proverbial child putting its hand too close to the fire to learn that it burns, those strengths and lessons can be learnt in ways that don't involve suffering or pain.
• 

  jabberwock

  Several people have mentioned that suffering can prove to be a learning experience and an opportunity for a person to grow. Certainly this is true, but, as LadyLee alluded to, suffering may not be strictly necessary for such learning and growth. I think we must then ask whether the sufferer is better off for having suffered.

  This does not, however, answer one of the questions from my original post:

  "When destroying the wicked at Armageddon why does Jehovah have to make them suffer at all?"

  Elsewhere understood me completely when he said, " Sounds to me like the all-powerful gawed of everything is either seriously lacking in imagination or is just cruel. Why not just make them... POOF... disappear? "

  It seems to me that it cannot be a loving God that would bring about the scenes depicted in the Watchtower illustrations of Armageddon. I wonder if Jehovah's Witnesses have a way of justifying this either in their own minds or at the door.

  jabberwock
• 

  quietlyleaving

  the way I see it, Jabberwock, everyone has to suffer, for example sickness and death and particularly death from the elements and by other species. The latter factors would have been more real during the time that the bible was written and for the aeons of time before. A world without suffering is an illusion.

  To be able to learn from suffering, one's own and from the suffering of others is a sublime experience in the sense of engaging with horrorfying aspects of life we know we have to face at one time or another. LIfe makes it necessary - the important thing is to somehow come out of it and rise above it and expect to engage with another round of suffering...

  I'm not sure though how productive an experience it is for JWs to consider armageddon in such graphic detail. I do remember being spellbound by it and I think I always, as in the movies, suspended thinking and imagination.

  edit: that was a very moving poem Lady Lee