Suffering shapes the life force, sometimes into anger, sometimes into blame and self-pity. Eventually it may show us the wisdom of embracing and loving life. – Rachel Remen, M.D.
Perhaps our suffering shapes us in the way that a chisel sculpts marble. The pain of each blow makes its mark. And it is the repeated blows that bring real change. We may emerge stronger. Or we may emerge beaten down and twisted, especially if we remain trapped in self-pity. But we are changed, nevertheless.
Many know the comment attributed to Michelangelo that sculpture involved, for him, freeing the beauty from the marble block before him. In any case, suffering always tells us a lot about the quality of our purpose…
If we abandon our life purpose at the first sign of pain, then our dedication to that purpose clearly lacked depth. I have seen this often with idealistic caregivers who enter their work, as youths, with romantic notions of heroism. And then the young nurse encounters her first bedpan, the medical student meets his first dying patient, the social worker confronts the challenge of having nowhere to place her aging client.
These are the early tests. But, we all know that there will be countless others.
The example of suffering I most often cite is from the founder of Purpose-Therapy (which he called Logotherapy) Dr. Victor Frankl. It’s difficult to imagine a cauldron of agony any worse than the Nazi concentration camps.
Yet each of us encounters our own version of pain. And in the middle of our personal agonies, we also come to know the second dragon: loneliness. In the middle of suffering, it can be so helpful to have a loving caregivers. But no caregiver can free us completely from our darkness.
Billions are drawn to the image of the suffering Jesus precisely because he exemplified suffering on behalf of the highest purpose we can imagine.
But at the most personal level, there is perhaps no greater chisel than the pounding pain of chronic illness. 
For example, one of the things my own case of Crohn’s disease taught me over the last four decades is the many different ways the chisel could strike. It might come as a blow to the gut, doubling me up with pain. But more pervasive was the chronic anxiety that lived with me in between those blows. As acute pain eased back, the spaces of non-pain were too often tinged with fear of the dragon’s return.
If I viewed the dragon as an enemy, my body would tense for a fight.
If I ignored the dragon, he would sneak up and attack when I least expected.
It was when I finally changed my image of illness and began to think of how the dragon’s blows were shaping me that I came to gratitude. Pain is too difficult and too expensive to throw away its hard-won benefits.
Dr. Rachel Remen also has Crohn’s. Her suffering has shaped her life-changing gift of teaching. It has also awakened in her a beautiful and loving eloquence.
Many years ago, it became her life purpose to illuminate the lives of physicians and patients and to awaken in them the power of Love. In this way, she has become a beautiful, living sculpture.
Reflection Question: How has your suffering shaped your life?
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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