Loss Pain Suffering Quotes & Sayings

Family secrets can go back for generations. They can be about suicides, homicides, incest, abortions, addictions, public loss of face, financial disaster, etc. All the secrets get acted out. This is the power of toxic shame. The pain and suffering of shame generate automatic and unconscious defenses. Freud called these defenses by various names: denial, idealization of parents, repression of emotions and dissociation from emotions. What is important to note is that we can't know what we don't know. Denial, idealization, repression and dissociation are unconscious survival mechanisms. Because they are unconscious, we lose touch with the shame, hurt and pain they cover up. We cannot heal what we cannot feel. So without recovery, our toxic shame gets carried for generations. — John Bradshaw

Only Certain offered no enticements, for she knew nothing could ease the pain. Not books or photography or food. Not even love. — Billie Letts

Death is a stage. A transience. A passage to a later life. If Kanya meditates on this idea long enough, she imagines that she will be able to assimilate it, but the truth is that Jaidee is dead and they will never meet again and whatever Jaidee earned for his next life, whatever incense and prayers Kanya offers, Jaidee will never be Jaidee, his wife will never be returned, and his two fighting sons can only see that loss and suffering are everywhere.
Suffering. Pain is the only truth. But it is better for young ones to laugh a while and feel the softness, and if this desire to coddle a child ties a parent to the wheel of existence so be it. A child should be indulged. This is what Kanya thinks as she rides her bicycle across the city toward the Ministry and the housing that Jaidee's descendants have been placed in: a child should be indulged. — Paolo Bacigalupi

This you have to understand. There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken. — Stephen R. Donaldson

When I think of war, I see blood. Pain and suffering. Nothing good comes from war.
But there is good. There will be an outcome. One side will find peace, solace. While the other will end in bitter loss.
There are two sides to the coin of war. — Hafsah Faizal

There is nothing but love. There was nothing but love. Love is all it is, and nothing exists that does not exist of love. That which is real and true is love. Suffering pain and loss is not real. Reality is that which is from love and love is the essence of the divine. What is not love is not real. What is not real is a construct made up by the ego through the instrument of the mind. It is the world of illusion, the veil on our eyes of utter darkness preventing us from seeing that which is real and true, which is love — Maha Khalid

Let us face at the outset how many Christians are not victorious, but defeated. Defeated by circumstances, defeated by other peoples? natures and wrong-doings, defeated by the down-drag of the flesh, defeated by loss, by pain, by suffering, by worry. Instead of saying with confidence, ?This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith?, they have to say in honesty, ?This is the defeat that has been caused by the world, even our self-centeredness.? That is the opposite of faith. Unbelief is not the opposite of faith; self-centeredness is ? being centered in self rather than in God. — Sam Shoemaker

Fateful encounters with a cruel world reveal our character. No human is immune from heartbreaking loss. Regardless of our socioeconomic status, eventually everybody shall suffer a grievous personal loss, a body blow that inflicts pain of inexpressible magnitude. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Suffering is one of life's great teachers. — Bryant McGill

Transformation
without work and pain, without suffering, without a sense of loss
is just an illusion of true change. — Wm. Paul Young

I think people can get a little weirded out by pain, suffering, and death. They don't know what to do so they end up saying things that are hurtful to people who have experienced loss. — Matt Chandler

For you see, the face of destiny or luck or god that gives us war also gives us other kinds of pain: the loss of health and youth; the loss of loved ones or of love; the fear that we will end our days alone. Some people suffer in peace the way others suffer in war. The special gift of that suffering, I have learned, is how to be strong while we are weak, how to be brave when we are afraid, how to be wise in the midst of confusion, and how to let go of that which we can no longer hold. In this way, anger can teach us forgiveness, hate can teach us love, and war can teach us peace. — Le Ly Hayslip

Sometimes it takes great suffering to pierce the soul and open it up to greatness — Jocelyn Murray

If, as a culture, we don't bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad, to let go, to move on, to cheer up. And if they don't - if they have loved too deeply, if they do wake each morning thinking, I cannot continue to live - well, then we pathologize their pain; we call their suffering a disease.
We do not help them: we tell them that they need to get help. — Cheryl Strayed

Please choose the way of peace.. In the short term there may be winners and losers in this war that we all dread. But that never can, nor never will justify the suffering, pain and loss of life your weapons will cause. — Mother Teresa

O you who sold yourself for the sake of something that will cause you suffering and pain, and which will also lose its beauty, you sold the most precious item for the cheapest price, as if you neither knew the value of the goods nor the meanness of the prize. Wait until you come on the Day of Mutual Loss and Gain and you will discover the injustice of this contract. — Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

I felt great empathy for my friend, as one form of cancer after another emerged to challenge him. I felt sympathy for his suffering that surely clawed at his daily routines, always active and busy, but he rarely verbalized complaints while courageously challenging his archenemy. He met pain and physical decline with 600-calorie workouts; he discarded anxieties somewhere along innumerable running trails; he faced death by running through life at full stride. — Brent Green

[Ilse] was suffering so keenly that she wanted to arraign the universe at the bar of her pain. — L.M. Montgomery

Remember: God's grief at the unspeakable things we do to one another is beyond measuring, but so is His mercy. It might seem a terrible thing to say to people who've lost and suffered so much at the hands of hatred and violence. But true courage is not to hate our enemy, any more than to fight and kill him. To love him, to love in the teeth of his hate - that is real bravery. That ought to earn people m-m-medals. — Tony Hendra

All our suffering is associated with this pre-occupation. All loss and gain, pleasure and pain arise because we identify so closely with this vague feeling of selfness that we have. We are so emotionally involved with and attached to this "self" that we take it for granted. — Francisco Varela

All that guides me is fear,
And all that finds me is loss
Death defines which paths I cross
It is within the shadows that I stumble
And I am desperate without a voice
Here I am threatened by the resolve that you are
my soul
But if my lies are the path that I have to wander
because there is no choice
Will you love me still?
In the darkness of the night when I wish to do
nothing more than take flight?
Will you hold me to this plane and ease the
suffering and pain?
When all you know is the truth
And all they see is the lies
Will I be the one you find, or the one you leave
behind?
Alone may be the only home I shall find — Cassandra Giovanni

So whenever any kind of disaster strikes, or something goes seriously "wrong" - illness, disability, loss of home or fortune or of a socially defined identity, breakup of a close relationship, death or suffering of a loved one, or your own impending death - know that there is another side to it, that you are just one step away from something incredible: a complete alchemical transmutation of the base metal of pain and suffering into gold. That one step is called surrender. — Eckhart Tolle

I always wondered what it must be like to lose a twin - if somehow Mary felt it like it was happening to her. If she felt physical pain. — Francesca Lia Block

Suicide is a particularly awful way to die: the mental suffering leading up to it is usually prolonged, intense and unpalliated. There is no morphine equivalent to ease the acute pain, and death, not uncommonly, is violent and grisly. The suffering of a suicidal is private and inexpressible, leaving family members, friends and colleagues to deal with an almost unfathomable kind of loss, as well as guilt. Suicide carries in its aftermath a level of confusion and devastation that is, for the most part, beyond description. — Kay Redfield Jamison

The inartistic methods that we use to blunt anxiety and unartful expedients that we resort to in order to escape pain and numb banality reveals what we dread most, the act of suffering from a mortal loss or the debasement that we earn by wallowing in our decadent acts of escapism. — Kilroy J. Oldster

But true love goes far deeper than that. It is an unexplainable connection of the heart, one that endures triumph and tragedy, pain and suffering, obstacles and loss. It is something that is either present or missing - there is no "almost", "in between", "most of the time." It is the unexplainable reason that some marriages entered into after one-week courtships can last a lifetime. Its absence is why "perfect" marriages fall apart. It can't be quantified or explained in science, religion, or philosophy. It can't be advised on by friends or marriage counselors who can't take their own advice. There are no rules, no how-to books, no guaranteed methods of success. It is not defined by vows or rings or promises of tomorrow. It is simply a miracle of God, that too few are blessed to experience. — Richard Doetsch

In the Garden story, good and evil are found on the same tree, not in separate orchards. Good and evil give meaning and definition to each other. If God, like us, is susceptible to immense pain, He is, like us, the greater in His capacity for happiness. The presence of such pain serves the larger purpose of God's master plan, which is to maximize the capacity for joy, or in other words, "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." He can no more foster those ends in the absence of suffering and evil than one could find the traction to run or the breath to sing in the vacuum of space. God does not instigate pain or suffering, but He can weave it into His purposes. "God's power rests not on totalizing omnipotence, but on His ability to alchemize suffering, tragedy, and loss into wisdom, understanding, and joy. — Terryl L. Givens

This empty shell holds nothing but the echoes of what was. — Jenim Dibie

Whether one is rich or poor, educated or illiterate, religious or nonbelieving, man or woman, black, white, or brown, we are all the same. Physically, emotionally, and mentally, we are all equal. We all share basic needs for food, shelter, safety, and love. We all aspire to happiness and we all shun suffering. Each of us has hopes, worries, fears, and dreams. Each of us wants the best for our family and loved ones. We all experience pain when we suffer loss and joy when we achieve what we seek. On this fundamental level, religion, ethnicity, culture, and language make no difference. — Dalai Lama XIV

Sometimes when we're suffering we feel as if we have been singled out. We wonder why God has picked on us. But my life as the rabbi of a small synagogue taught me that if that's what we think, we are mistaken. We are never alone in our suffering. Scratch the surface of any family, any social gathering, any congregation, and you will find loss and pain there. We may not always be privy to the pain, but it is there just the same. If we had the power to peer inside the heart of any human being, we would uncover there a silent anguish. — Naomi Levy

You don't have a monopoly on pain or loss. It's a level playing field - we all lose - we all grieve. It's what remains afterwards that defines us. Guilt is the poison we pump into our own veins. It's self-inflicted torture. — R.W. Patterson

Solace is what we must look for when the mind cannot bear the pain, the loss or the suffering that eventually touches every life and every endeavour; when longing does not come to fruition in a form we can recognize, when people we know and love disappear, when hope must take a different form than the one we have shaped for it. — David Whyte

Every sufferer who bears pain, or slander, or loss, or personal unkindness for Christ's sake, is filling up that amount of suffering which is necessary to the bringing together of the whole body of Christ, and the upbuilding of His elect Church. — Charles Spurgeon

Whenever we give our hearts in love, the burden of our vulnerability grows. We risk being rebuffed or embarrassed or inadequate. Beyond these things, we risk the enormous pain of loss. When those we love die, a part of us dies with them. When those we love are sick, in body or spirit, we too feel the pain. All of this is worth it. Especially the pain. If we insulate our hearts from suffering, we shall only subdue the very thing that makes life worth living. We cannot protect ourselves from loss. We can only protect ourselves from the death of love, we are left only with the aching hollow of regret, that haunting emptiness where love might have been. — Forrest Church

The reality of heaven doesn't take away the pain of or suffering or our losses, but it assures us that our pain is temporary. — Dave Dravecky

She had never looked as well. She had entered her room as just an impossibly lovely girl. The woman who emerged was a trifle thinner, a great deal wiser, an ocean sadder. This one understood the nature of pain, and beneath the glory of her features, there was character, and a sure knowledge of suffering. — William Goldman

God has hewn out a hidden path more glorious, tantalizing and adventuresome than the path trod by most, and it is a path seen only through the eyes of our wounds, felt solely through the heart of our losses, and singularly traversed by those with a limp in their step. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Michelle shrugged off Sam's aggression. Her eyes misted with memories. "Our curveball was a brain tumor. A grade IV astrocytoma, to be specific. He tried all the treatments - chemo, radiation, even surgery. Nothing helped alleviate his symptoms or his suffering. He was dying in the most horrible way. Seizures, nausea, blinding headaches, memory loss like an Alzheimer's patient. I didn't know what it was like to watch someone I love suffer so much, but I can relate to Julie's pain because the experience was utterly excruciating. — Daniel Palmer

I can see her struggling to find the right word. Death seems so harsh. Passing so oblique. Some things are beyond words, I suppose, and she never finishes the statement. It seems right, that her words should fall into oblivion; after all, she - like me, like everyone - has no words for what follows, for the unknowable, only her hopes and prayers and an unwavering faith in something more. — Kelseyleigh Reber

Three, 300, or 3,000 - these are the number of unknown days, a week, a year, or a decade, each far too precious little and yet, poignantly too much at the same time, to see an irrevocably declined loved one languish and suffer. That fear-ridden, irreversible release lingers in the doorway, but hesitates for reasons we don't understand, leaving us to weep with a mixture of angst and gratitude all at the same time. It is finally ushered all the way in, to comfort and carry our loved one to that Better Place. When the time finally comes, we can be enveloped in a warm cloak of long-awaited acceptance and peace that eases our own pain. It quiets the grief which has moaned inside of us, at least some, every single one of those bittersweet days, weeks... or years. — Connie Kerbs

The NFL determines your worth as a player, but only God knows your true worth. Players work long and hard through pain and suffering, injuries, and pushing themselves further than they imagined going - then poof ! A dream is gone. That kind of treatment can really mess with one's self worth. Getting cut can be deemed a failure, the loss of a lifetime goal.
Thankfully, as Christians our worth is not determined by mistakes we've made, either accidentally or by stupid stuff we've purposely done. Neither is it determined by what anyone else thinks. Our worth is determined by what Jesus Christ has already done. — Jake Byrne

She started beating it against the walls and floor until it was nothing but pieces, nothing but a memory of a guitar. I had an idea, though not yet clear, that it wasn't her arms that beat what once could sing, but her heavy heart, as she once said that even the Rock of Gibraltar had ten thousand holes. — Jackie Haze

More commonly suffering breaks people, crushes them, and is simply unilluminating. You see how gruesomely human beings are destroyed by pain, when they have the added torment of losing their humanity first, so that their death is a total defeat ... — Saul Bellow

And I realized that until we have healed, pain is how we bear loss in our bodies. Sometimes we mistake the pain for love, so we hold on to it, we stay there in the darkness, in the valley. Or we think that if it doesn't hurt, it isn't love. But when we allow ourselves to move through it and out of it...eventually we heal. And only when we experience the entire journey, through the suffering to wholeness, do we know the full scope of love. — Emily Foster

When you weep, Jesus weeps with you. And together you enter into the dance of tears. The dance of tears with Jesus is a precious intimacy He shares only with those who have known deep suffering. In the dance of tears, Jesus shares your pain. He carries your deep sorrows in His everlasting arms. And He ultimately turns your mourning into dancing. He revives and saves your crushed spirit. What a blessed comfort in our deepest darkness to know the One who shares the depth of every pain and loss, every joy and gladness. Jesus, He is the One. — Catherine Martin

Like everyone else in the world, I've been devastated by the loss and suffering of so many in South Asia ... As a mother, I cannot imagine the pain that they are experiencing. We can all see that it's going to take a long time for those people to rebuild their lives, and they will need our help for years to come. — Celine Dion

Though poor in this world's goods, though grieving the loss of loved ones, though suffering pain of body, though harassed by sin and Satan, though hated and persecuted by worldlings, whatever be the case and lot of the Christian, it is both his privilege and duty to rejoice in the Lord. — Arthur W. Pink

We have all suffered losses and pain, but no loss is greater than a life lost holding-on to a painful past. — Bryant McGill

I thought at first she was just dead. Just darkness. Just a body being eaten by bugs. I thought about her a lot like that, as something's meal. What was her-green eyes, half a smirk, the soft curves of her legs-would soon be nothing, just the bones I never saw. I thought about the slow process of becoming bone and then fossil and then coal that will, in millions of years, be mined by humans of the future, and how they would their homes with her, and then she would be smoke billowing out of a smokestack, coating the atmosphere.

I still think that, sometimes. I still think that, sometimes, think that maybe "the afterlife" is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe she was just a matter, and matter gets recycled. — John Green

Instead of asking ourselves, 'How can I find security and happiness?' we could ask ourselves, 'Can I touch the center of my pain? Can I sit with suffering, both yours and mine, without trying to make it go away? Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace-disapp ointment in all its many forms-and let it open me?' This is the trick. — Pema Chodron

It seemed to her that almost any pain was sympathetic to her loss and she inserted herself immediately into the concept of fantastic suffering. — Louise Erdrich

HOW TO REFUSE DEFEAT Life is fragile and uncertain. Sooner or later, you will experience a great loss in life, when suffering reveals that the world is not the place you think it is, and that your dreams will not come true after all. What then? Don't blame others for what happened to you, even if it might well be their fault. This is a dead end. And don't settle for stoic acceptance of your fate. Merely bearing up under strain is noble, but it's wasting an opportunity for transformation. You have the power to turn your burden into a blessing. What if this pain, this heartbreak, this failure, was given to you to help you find your true self? Make adversity work for you by launching a quest inside your own heart. Find the dragons hiding there, slay them, and bring back the treasure that will help you live well. — Rod Dreher

He needs a looser association. He needs something that implies a man who wants the ice shard to remain in his chest, who's learned to love the sensation of being pierced. — Michael Cunningham

And when she at last came out, her eyes were dry. Her parents stared up from their silent breakfast at her. They both started to rise but she put a hand out, stopped them. 'I can care for myself, please,' and she set about getting some food. They watched her closely.
In point of fact, she had never looked as well. She had entered her room as just an impossibly lovely girl. The woman who emerged was a trifle thinner, a great deal wiser, and an ocean sadder. This one understood the nature of pain, and beneath the glory of her features, there was character, and a sure knowledge of suffering.
She was eighteen. She was the most beautiful woman in a hundred years. She didn't seem to care.
'You're all right?' her mother asked.
Buttercup sipped her cocoa. 'Fine,' she said.
'You're sure?' her father wondered.
'Yes,' Buttercup replied. There was a very long pause. 'But I must never love again.'

She never did. — William Goldman

As a religious problem, the problem of suffering is, paradoxically, not how to avoid suffering but how to suffer, how to make of physical pain, personal loss, worldly defeat, or the helpless contemplation of others' agony something bearable, supportable- something as we say, sufferable. — Clifford Geertz