Suffering Well
Rikki Permenter, MAMFC, Th. M.
“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
I want to introduce you to a little-known man named Viktor Emil Frankl. Viktor was a Holocaust survivor but you won’t find museums in his honor. He changed the way people conceptualize suffering but you can’t tour his home like Anne Frank. In his life before the Holocaust he was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist. During the time he was imprisoned in various concentration camps, including Auschwitz, he was witness to great human suffering and analyzed the nature of suffering from a scholarly perspective. There are few people in the world (present or past) I would consider larger than life. Viktor Frankl is one of these people.
Lately it seems that there has been much suffering around the world. If you look to any media outlet you can find news of natural disaster and man-made disaster. In one of my favorite quotes Frankl states, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” In these hard times many things can be taken. Loved ones, the feeling of safety or security, and freedoms of various kinds can be taken from us but our ability to choose our own response to suffering can never be taken from us. Frankl also says “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
In these hard times we are give the space to choose how we would like to respond or react to the world. Our response can be one that mirrors the fruit of the spirit as found in Galatians 5:22-23 or we can choose to react in a manner that mirrors the rest of the world. Frank says “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.” May our abnormal reactions be ones of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
This article can be found in print in the monthly Baptist Association of Southeast Louisiana newsletter.
