We all struggle with loss and suffering in this world as it is now. It is the curse of perpetual death and decay that began when Adam and Eve ate that fruit, allowing death to enter our bloodline. Until our Lord returns and takes sin and all evils away, we are subjected to this consequence and we all need to learn to cope with it in a healthy, biblical way. Personally, I never learned how to grieve until Jesus entered my life. In the time before, I did a lot of distracting and shoving my feelings away until I eventually became suicidal, numb, or dissociative. He has taught me a lot in the last year about pain, loss, and how to deal with it. Here are some scriptures to learn from:

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

• The Lord is the embodiment of love, hope, joy, and comfort: for which we should praise Him. Through the comfort and strength He gives us we can pull through our own struggles.
• Because the Lord strengthens us and feeds us hope, we are able to comfort others in their suffering. The Father works through us to comfort those around us.

Since He comforts us and has revived our spirits, we have been made strong in His Spirit, healed by His stripes (Isaiah 53), we are able to show others the same love and comfort that He has given us. We are separated from those still living a life of the world so therefore we are capable of comprehending and living a life in the Lord’s will. His will is that we love others as He has loved us, to love them as we love ourselves. We are called to sacrifice and love in a way that is different than what the world understands. Because we have been made able to love in that way, we are meant to show that comfort and healing.

Psalms 30:5

“For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”

• Pain and tears last for a moment, even if it feels like it will last forever. You will move on and find peace.
• The sun will rise on a new day and you can learn to find joy. It may sound like a corny, wall-hanging saying, but it’s true and the psalmist said it with spiritual intervention. God will comfort us in our loss. His anger and punishment won’t last, His allowance for suffering will end and you will be left stronger in body, mind, and spirit.
• His favor and love lasts forever, even in moments where we are not faithful, or we are angry with Him. His faithfulness never wavers for a moment.

James 1:2-3

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.”

• Even if we don’t know Jesus, we will experience pain and trials. That doesn’t change even once we build a relationship with Him.
• The tests if pain creates strength and patience in us. God does not love our suffering but through Him, despite the suffering we create fruits. He loves to see us strong!
• We can find joy in knowing that we will prevail over the struggle! We know that if our faith remains strong, we will have more favor with the Lord. We will learn from the pain and will know how to rise up the next time tribulation happens.

God wants to see us strong! He doesn’t enjoy seeing our struggle, but He knows the results of it. Because He can see much more broadly than we can in our subjective viewpoint, He knows what we will become if we persevere. We can try to remember this in our suffering and allow Him to strengthen us in the battle.

Psalms 147:3

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

Psalms 34:17-18

“The righteous cry our, and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.”

• On our own, we are not righteous. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we have been made right in the Lord’s eyes. By genuine repentance and a humbled spirit, the Lord is willing to forgive us of our transgressions.
• The Lord loves us and because He sees our suffering He will deliver us from it.
• He draws near to those with broken hearts and wants to bring healing and hope into our lives.
• The Bible is filled with scriptures speaking of God’s wrath and righteous justice, but you don’t have to worry about that if you live under His umbrella of grace. He offers you comfort in the pain if you only humble yourself and surrender to His will.

Philippians 3:10-11

“that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

• Even as we struggle, we can take comfort in the fact that God knows how it feels to suffer as a human. He came down from His throne, from the eternal presence of God, to be a human and experience life as a human and suffer an excruciating, humiliating death as a sacrifice.
• He not only knows how it feels to suffer but He is still there today, struggling and fighting with us in the present moment.
• He offers to take our heavy yoke and to trade it for His light burden, so we can heal and be comforted in our losses.
• Louis H. Evans says, “Man is never so tall as when he kneels before God — never so great as when he humbles himself before God. And the man who kneels to God can stand up to anything.”

By suffering with dignity in the way Jesus did, by dropping our pride and humbling ourselves before Almighty God, and by dying to our flesh every day, we can learn to live the way Jesus did. This will only further our joy as we struggle. A little story from my personal life: My great-grandmother who was a Jehovah’s Witness loved the Lord with all her heart. She may have had different viewpoints than typical Christians, but she loved Jehovah and Jesus her whole life and it showed in her actions. She eventually suffered from stage four fatal cancer, but because of her love for Jesus she not only went through it with grace, she also had much joy. The last picture I have before she passed shows her with three of her great-grandchildren with a giant smile on her face.

Romans 5:3-4

“And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

• We cannot be as glorious as our Lord God, but we do inherit His glory by enduring suffering with grace the way He did.
• We gain perseverance as His Spirit strengthens us and teaches us. We gain character by working through the tribulation with grace and the Spirit’s contentment.
• Finding contentment and peace through all struggle was what Paul meant when he said in Philippians 4:11-13, “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content: I know how to be based, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Romans 8:28

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

• For those who love and have faith in the Lord, all bad things will work out for good.
• These things aren’t always apparent to our subjective, limited sight, but it is consoling to know that the Lord has our best interests at heart.

Another personal story: Not long after I moved out of my dad’s house, after struggling with the mental abuse in that house, depression, anxiety, PTSD, and a terrible drug experience (most of which I’ll describe in more detail at a later date), my boyfriend and I lived in a camper on his boss’ lawn. We lived there for about three weeks on the side of a busy roadway when the most unexpected thing happened. I woke up one morning in 2021 to go to work and as I rounded the corner of the camper I noticed that my boyfriend’s truck had been thrown all the way across the lawn, its flatbed ripped off completely and the truck totaled. My boyfriend had just finished pouring thousands of dollars into it and had parked it about six feet from where our heads were sleeping the night before. A heroine addict had fallen asleep at the wheel and hit our truck parked right next to our heads at probably around 50 mph, narrowly missing the camper, and then drove away. We somehow slept through the initial crash, the sirens, and my boyfriend’s boss knocking on our door in the middle of the night. The only plus side to that night, as it looked at the time, was the full night of sleep.

It became apparent to me after that night that someone was watching out for me. I had survived extreme suicide ideation, much abuse, near-death farm experiences, and then this close call in the middle of the night. It got me thinking about my purpose here on earth, and why my life had gone the way it had. Almost a year later, I started to get to know Jesus, and I began praying for that man who totaled the truck. I forgave him and prayed that he would have the same experience I did in that it made him think about his purpose.

The next year, at church we invited Teen Challenge to share their testimonies about how Jesus had changed their life. Next thing I know, that very same man is standing at the podium! Someone I had gone to high school with, who had struggled with drugs his whole life, was standing there sharing his testimony(coming on the blog soon)! I almost couldn’t believe it! God had turned this terrible thing around for good by using to save this man, and myself! I am overjoyed to call him a brother in Christ!

My suffering has led me to know Jesus, and I don’t wish to take any of it back. The pains I’ve endured have shaped me into the woman I am today. I am grateful that I have been delivered from those struggles and healed from many of my ailments in Jesus’ name. We can cling to his word and his unfailing presence to persevere in the struggle, and grow into the people we are meant to be.

Thanks for reading this study! As I keep figuring out my formatting, I hope to make this blog appear more professional. I appreciate your patience and your engagement! If you have any critiques, or testimonies, please put them in the comments below, or you can DM my Instagram! God bless you and I hope you have a great day!