Misconceptions in Western Christianity's Approach to Suffering and Healing

The church does a lot of things well, but helping people find their way through unrelenting suffering is not typically one of them. To my mind, the reason for this bewildering lack of help for those who suffer stems from modern Western Christianity's inaccurate definitions for concepts like suffering, healing, hard circumstances and miracles.

Too often we see suffering as something to be silently endured, never showing other believers just how far our pain grinds down our defenses, how close we live to hopelessness. In my experience, the church also struggles when a member's suffering doesn't have an expiration date. So when a member's pain will only end when Jesus returns, people don't know how to help or what to pray for.

We think of healing only in terms of the cessation of a physical ailment or condition, no matter that too many of us will never arrive at such a reprieve until we receive our new bodies in paradise. Such a narrow definition leaves people like me, someone with permanent physical and mental ailments, in a bewildering, faith-killing position, wondering what I did to be denied access to God's power. This also ignores healing that can happen in our thinking, in our mindset, that enables the suffering believer to live with joy rather than fear.

We look at hard circumstances as an unusual, confusing experience. We wonder why God would allow us to exist under such an unforgiving regime while forgetting the myriad scriptures that plainly tell us to expect, even celebrate trouble when it finds us.

We think of miracles as something instantaneous, ignoring that sometimes a miracle can happen one faithful step at a time. And if we are blessed with a miracle, we think this obligates us to be this uber-positive super Christian, never flagging or failing, never denying or doubting. And when we inevitably miss such an unrealistically high standard, we think we've somehow spoiled the gift God gave us.

But we live in a world where God's grace allows even the hardest life to be joyful, full of gratitude and hope. And being a believer who suffers allows us to draw nearer to Jesus, our own man of sorrows, then we would have otherwise. Thank goodness!