I meet with a dear friend every so often, sometimes regularly, sometimes when life allows, to talk about faith, about real life, about the things we don’t always say out loud. Recently, this conversations carried a different weight. You see, my friend is walking through the deep reality of grief after losing her husband. She understands sorrow in a way that can only be learned by living it.
And I too have been grieving. Different losses. Quieter ones. Losses that have been out of my control, but have deeply affected me none-the-less. The kind that don’t always come with casseroles or condolences, but still leave an ache behind.
But this happened so that the works of God might be displayed.
John 9:3
In one of our recent readings together, she paused and quoted a familiar verse from John 9:3 out of our reading: “These things happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” I’ve heard that verse many times before. But this time, she read it with an emphasis on the ‘so that.’ And she asked me, “what if suffering is so that we can demonstrate God to others?”
I visibly paused to think. So that. Two small words. Heavy with meaning.
So often, when suffering comes, we are ripe with questioning our God. Or ripe with trying to get rid of our God. But the questions still remain. Why is life so hard sometimes? Why does loss come without warning? Why does suffering feel so unfair—and so personal? Given that life passes in the blink of an eye, why should we have to suffer in it?
We often want answers that explain suffering away. We want reasons that make it hurt less. But getting mad at or erasing God from the picture doesn’t actually help us make sense of pain. In fact, suffering itself is a great moral question, one that quietly assumes the existence of the reverse: joy and happiness. If we feel something is wrong, unjust, or broken, it’s because somewhere deep inside we know how things ought to be.
So what is the purpose of suffering? What if it isn’t meaningless?
My friend had reframed the question in a way that has stayed with me: Instead of asking “Why is this happening?” What if we asked, “This suffering is happening so that (fill in the blank)?”
What if suffering isn’t only about how it feels to us but about what it gives to others?
What if it is so that compassion grows where it didn’t exist before? So that empathy deepens? So that love becomes visible in ordinary, costly ways? So that someone else sees grace lived out, not just spoken about? What if, somehow, mysteriously, painfully, our suffering becomes a place where the works of God are displayed, not because the pain is good, but because God meets us in it?
And what if our suffering is so that others around us may see and taste God? Not through perfect answers. Not through polished faith. But through a quiet endurance. A shared tear. A presence that says, you are not alone.
Sometimes faith doesn’t remove the pain. But it gives the pain a place to land. And sometimes, I find that is enough to keep going.
God, meet me in my suffering. Help me trust that nothing I endure is wasted in Your hands. Show me the ‘so that’ where You are at work and how my pain might reveal Your love to others. Amen.
So I ask you gently and honestly: What is your so that right now? Where is life asking more of you than feels fair? Where is grief shaping you, even if you wish it weren’t? And where might God be at work, not despite the suffering, but within it?
xo Carre
