The winter Olympics are on right now and my family and I are glued to the set. We love watching the performances, but we equally love hearing the back stories of the athletes and the trials they’ve gone through to be considered the best each of their countries have to offer.

In some instances, athletes have overcome catastrophic injuries, lost family members, survived life threatening illnesses, suffered thru poverty and severe financial hardships, lost relationships and have overcome complete mental breakdowns to reach the pinnacle of success in their respective sports. It gives me profound respect for them and it also makes me wonder where we’d be without suffering.

I think about stuff like that because, good or bad, I’m one of those people that probably thinks way too much about things.

Anyway, I always tell my children that no great athlete, inventor, or anyone else for that matter whose ever accomplished anything special ever did it by sitting around on a lazy boy all day drinking soda and eating potato chips.

Whether it’s a great accomplishment or just providing for yourself, or your family takes hard work and unfortunately a level of pain and suffering to help you grow.

While pain and suffering are never fun while your going through it, the reward on the other side of your patient endurance is typically worth it.

And let’s face it, how many of us are moved in our spirit by the wealthy aristocrat who took over their parents company and maintained the family fortune, or by the guy living off his girlfriend who sits in his pajamas in the living room playing video games all day. Zero right, while admirable in the first case and loathsome in the second, neither example stirs our soul.

No, we want to here the hard knock stories how musicians were literally thrown out of a hundred agents offices, being told they’d never make it in the business before making it huge on the 101st try.

And where would we be if Edison would have given up on the 9900th try at making the light bulb?

Hardship shapes us, flat out! Even the bad stuff teaches us good things if we will only listen and use it to learn from. Granted, life can be a meat grinder at times and we’re left wondering does anyone care, does anyone notice what I’m going through right now?

Sure it’s fine to reflect upon pain and suffering in the rear view mirror, but what about now when your in the midst of the storm and you just want the hurt to stop.

The answer to the question does anyone care is a profound and resounding yes.  Even though the one who cares the most is the one who allows grief into our lives in the first place.

I’m sure God has a lot of reasons why he allows pain and suffering into our lives, but one of the main reasons I believe is so we have the opportunity to grow and ultimately come to know Him intimately.

When I was 23 years old, you couldn’t tell me anything. I was an arrogant young lieutenant, at the height of my physical game who thought I knew it all.  I was far too popular with the ladies for my own good and had just enough money in my wallet to be dangerous. My pleasure was often purchased at the price of others misery.

While my reason for needing a lot of suffering may have been different than yours, it’s still necessary for all of us to go through it. I needed to be humbled, and tenderized by that mighty educational tool known as suffering.

Your reason might be stubbornness, drug addiction, sex addiction, greed, lack of compassion, any number of things, Lord knows….!

No really, He knows, literally, God knows what each of us needs in our life to become teachable and give us an awareness and dependence on Him.

And like the perfect parent He is, He’s willing to “not” rescue us from all the grief we cause both ourselves and others, and life’s circumstances in hope that we will eventually call out to him to safely guide us home.

Crazy, I know, right! We’ll check this out:

“For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” Romans 8:20-21, NIV Bible

What do you think? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear your thoughts.