This is Not Suffering…This is Whining

Suffering is a great killer of faith. For people who are not only used to suffering but can also not avoid it? They perhaps handle it better. But for those of us who are reasonably comfortable? I wonder if we have gotten too out of touch with reality. I notice an awful lot of people acting like suffering should not exist at all.

Take me for instance. I ordered this piece of furniture on January 1, 2021. The handy email receipt told me to expect delivery on March 1st. I would have preferred it in January - but ok, I think, I can be flexible. I am a reasonable person; I realize that we are in the first year of a pandemic and I know that history teaches us that pandemics last two years. I can wait until March.

March and April come and go but still I do not have my piece of furniture. Estimated time of arrival? End of May. I start complaining about this as if it is a hardship. It is not. It is an expected result in the middle of a pandemic.

We humans have been complaining about our suffering since the beginning of time. God couldn't work fast enough to get Eve created and handed over to Adam. He did not need a single dating app or dating ritual - God just provided. Still with the complaining. One tree out of a whole garden off limits? Those two could not bear it. They had to nibble at its fruit. You know the rest of the story.

Ending suffering is a worthy cause. I spend parts of every day praying and pondering - how can we do more to end the suffering of families struggling with the epidemic of substance use disorder? If I had a magic wand, I would wave it.

But waiting on a piece of furniture is not suffering, it's called waiting. Suffering is when I think I am too special to have to wait - which reminds me too much of my toddler grandchildren who at least have age as an excuse for their need for immediate cookie gratification. A garden full of delicious offerings with one lousy tree considered out-of-bounds is not suffering, it's called denial of limitations. I confess that today I realize that if my sideboard never arrives, I'm still one blessed human.