Peter Sontag > Recent Status Updates

I once watched a little boy fall off his bike several houses away from home. He started to cry, but then he quickly stopped. He picked up his bike and walked in silence to his house. When he stepped on his porch, he began to wail in pain. Clearly, he had concluded that crying half a block away from home was a waste of tears. When his mother hit the porch, he tearfully told the story that was much more dramatic.

Even our suffering does not belong to us, but to the Lord. Perhaps it is easier to recognize that our blessings belong to the Lord than it is to recognize that he owns our suffering. If you watch someone suffer, you will see that we tend to treat suffering as something that belongs to us, something we can respond to as we please. We tend to turn in on ourselves. Our world shrinks to the size of our pain.