Death. Disease. Disaster. Dignity.

All human suffering can really be combined under these three D’s. Death brings suffering for the victim as well as those left behind. It is the unnatural separation of the body and soul, a welcome door to salvation for some, but a painful portal for all. Disease: emotional, spiritual, or physical, it racks the mind, tortures the body, and cripples the soul that does not know to seek its dignity amidst and specifically in such suffering. Disaster: regardless at how you look at it, brought by the “hand of God”, mother Nature, or man against himself, disaster tears at the rational intellect, mortifies the proud, and devastates the innocent. The 3 D’s leave man peering alone into an abyss, grappling with the question WHY? Or perhaps more deeply still WHO AM I?  Understanding the latter will shed light on the former, though in some ways it may intensify the pain, it also makes it  bearable…as testified by the millions of souls who have endured death, disease, and disaster with a grace that is worthy of their….



Dignity cries out with every pain, it is the 4th D, and perhaps the indirect reason why the first three are so painful.  One cannot help but ask WHY? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? If I have such dignity, where does it exist, that it can survive suffering – even the suffering of the magnitude found in the poorest and remotest parts of the globe?

We must remember that we were created, but then we fell. The Lord came to redeem us and to restore us to new life. Our redemption came through His suffering, our victory in His apparent defeat. When He hung between earth and sky He had won. It was the moment of Salvation.  He did not eradicate the temporal disorder that plagues this world, but restored the eternal order and even perfected it, making us participants in His Body, Children of God, Heirs of the Promise, uniting us with the Triune Lord. Suffering is real, because our bodies still await redemption, but with Christ it is the very Power of God for Our Redemption.