by Nadia Ramoutar  MMM Communications Coordinator             Ireland                         01.08.2024

As a young girl growing up in Ireland, I somehow got the idea that being an adult was an arrival point, like a destination lounge in an airport. You became an adult and then you had the freedom to create whatever life you wanted. Along with this fallacy, I also believed that good things happened to good people. The idea of suffering was not one that I thought would be part of my older years. Little did I know how much of a role suffering plays in the adult – and often child world plays. As we look around our world today, we can see so much suffering that we can question our faith. But, perhaps the reverse should be true.

Part of what I also did not understand was that suffering too, has it’s purpose. Suffering is a valuable teacher and it is a way for us to grow and to become stronger. I have found now that where there is suffering in our world or in our own lives there is an opening for things to be better than they are now. Even suffering brings gifts to the faithful. We just have be patient when things don’t go our way. Hold on.

Rather than seeking a life that is easy and comfortable all the time, we can look at places in the world when things are going poorly and reverse the question. What can we do to bring mercy and grace to those who suffer, including to ourselves? Some people suggest that it is in Romans that we can see how faith and practice come together in ways to live as Christians.

“…We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3-4, NIV).

Perseverance is such a loaded word in so many ways because it implies patience over time. It gives us a sense that it is a grasping at patience and not letting go of it. Often time our work in global health and justice can seem overly layered in suffering. It feels as if we won’t be able to overcome the magnitude of the problems and challenges faced. But with perseverance, hope again emerges and our character is positively impacted by its presence.

Faith is really tested when things become challenging. It is easy to be faithful when life goes our way, but when it does not then we cannot just shrug and give up. We have to then find out what our true character really is. We can see that it is in suffering we learn who we are and we have a choice then to persevere or perish. At times like this, we can also be role models to other people as they see us growing faced with challenges rather than falling apart. Keeping other people calm and being clear and focused can serve us better than any worrying when times are hard.