The Questions of a Sufferer

Why me?
Why now? 
Why this?
How long?

The rantings, mumblings, prayers and petitions of a suffering person.
The deep, throaty cries of someone enduring unexpected trauma, hardship.

Our prayers start with these questions. 

But it's an interesting journey, this suffering thing.
We start with angry shouts, which turn to mournful laments, which end (if we let it) with quiet sobs and submitted hearts.  And the questions change.
We stop asking why and how long.
And we start asking, 

"Who else?"

Who else is sitting with head in hands, tears streaming, and life heavy on their backs?
Who else is crying out and moaning, writhing and weeping?
Who else needs comfort, needs encouragement, needs a hand to hold and another to believe for them: that it will be okay in the end?

The journey of an afflicted one: why me....becomes who else?

And this, this is how the world will be changed.
This is how bad and evil is redeemed to good.
Because all of a sudden in our deepest sorrows, when God gives us more of His grace and His comfort and His strength, we see others with new eyes.

Where there was once 'othering' and 'discriminating' there becomes compassion and empathy.  One-ness.  Unity.  We are all experiencing the broken-ness of this world in some way.  And we need each other.  We need to be Christ to each other.  Enduring with, walking with, journeying with, each other.

And though suffering can harden and embitter, it can also bring about community where there was once isolation.  Like a hot fire in a dark and cold night, it can draw people together to sit around it, shoulder to shoulder and share stories.  Hard stories.  Good stories.  Real stories.  

So I choose to continue to be purified by this fiery furnace of affliction so that I can journey with others who are walking under heavy loads.  I choose not to be embittered.  Not to withdraw.  Not to wallow in the questions (any longer) of why me, why this, and why now.

And instead,
look around.

Who else?