Does God Like Suffering?

"So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good." 1 Peter 4:19

One of my good friends is doing the Mystical City of God in a Year podcast with me and we text back and forth sharing things that impact us. She was having a hard time processing just how much God permitted Mary to suffer. Her sufferings her entire life were so great we can’t even comprehend most of them. But the book describes God as being pleased with her suffering and sacrifice and something about the language of that didn’t sit right with my friend. She has a son with Down Syndrome who often hurts himself and of course as his mother, this causes my friend great suffering. I could hear the hurt in her heart as she said, "I don’t understand why God allows my son to suffer like this, how could something so painful be pleasing to Him? Does it really please Him when my son hurts himself?" Of course I don’t understand this unique pain that my friend experiences, but I do know that heart-wrenching, faith-questioning emotions and situations are common to the human experience. There’s something about my friend's question that felt familiar to me and similar to thoughts I’ve had at times, and I’m willing to bet you may have had a similar question at some point in your life too. Why would God permit this, is my suffering pleasing to Him? What kind of God is that?

I think God is not necessarily taking pleasure in the suffering, rather He is pleased with Mary’s (and our) willingness to accept the suffering. She could have not accepted the suffering, and that would have been ok too, it’s not a sin to avoid suffering. But instead she chose to suffer so she could unite with Him and offer it up and that’s what was pleasing to God. No suffering in itself is pleasing to Him, the suffering is not His perfect will- it is a result of the fall, of existing in a fallen world. Mary was not impacted by original sin so she did not have to suffer at all- she chose to for the sake of others and that’s what I think was pleasing to God. I don’t think God gets pleasure from my friend's son's injuries. That hurts His heart even more than it hurts my friend's heart because He loves her son as His son even more than my friend does. What He may find pleasure in is our resolve to accept these crosses He has given us to carry.

I’m not sure what “accepting it” looks like for you- that’s between you and God. But I know whatever type of surrender it is, it would please Him.

I went to mass recently and during the homily, the priest talked about how being able to “offer up” and “accept” our suffering is itself a grace only God can give us. By our own accord we cannot offer up or accept suffering, we must first receive the grace to do so from God. So if you’re finding this hard to do so, don’t be so hard on yourself about it, maybe just try asking for the grace to be able to do so one day, and leave it at that...