When suffering hits close to home, we have no choice but to endure it. But if we don’t suffer from extreme poverty, war, or natural disasters, we may go on with our days forgetting about those experiencing these things.
While we know suffering exists, those of us who live in relative comfort may find it difficult to really understand the pain others go through. Maybe it’s even impossible.
Yet, even though we may not suffer certain types of burdens, we may suffer from other things going on in life.
Understanding Suffering
There are different types and degrees of suffering. Some people suffer from illness, others from injustice or anxiety about the past or future. Sometimes, suffering jolts us from a peaceful sleep. Some of us wake up with physical pain. Others awake and quickly remember something sad. Some of us can’t sleep at all. And while our own personal suffering may be small compared to that of others, it’s still suffering.
In one way or another, suffering is something we all face at some point.
While our own times of suffering can allow us to reconnect with God—to trust God to pull us through—the experience can be excruciating. When we suffer, we can’t think straight, always weighed down by whatever is bothering us. We pray for God’s help and mercy. When we suffer, no matter what it’s about, we feel it at our core.
I sometimes make the mistake of downplaying the suffering of those of us who live relatively comfortable lives. For example, in the past, when my wife experienced some difficulty in life, my strategy was to help her see reality as I saw it. “The problems you have aren’t really problems,” I’d tell her. “There are people who would love to trade their problems for yours.”
My approach seemed reasonable. I was trying to get her to quickly snap out of the feelings she was having. But suffering isn’t like that. Through her tears, she’d look at me and say, “It doesn’t matter how small my problems are. They’re still real problems. Everyone’s problems are big to them.”
Through these conversations, my wife taught me that suffering is suffering, regardless of what it’s about, and no matter how small it may seem to an outsider. Through her, I learned no suffering is trivial, and that I should never downplay it, no matter how “small” it may seem.
What Is Co-Suffering?
Helping others often begins with empathizing with them, feeling their pain. So why is it so difficult for us to feel the suffering of others? It may be because we only look at ourselves when we suffer.
When I suffer, it’s something for me to feel. When others suffer, it’s something for them to experience. However, what I’ve come to realize is that my own personal suffering can remind me of the difficulties others experience. My own moments of suffering can allow me to better understand I’m not alone in my suffering.
This is co-suffering.
Empathy has always been a challenge for me, but one afternoon, when I wasn’t expecting it at all, I had a profound experience of deep empathy. It happened at a fitness club in London. That day, I planned to indulge at the club’s spa, really getting my money’s worth of the monthly membership fee. At some point, I entered the sanarium—a not-too-hot-sauna where you can relax and forget about everything on the outside. It was quiet and warm, with a soft smell of cedar wood and dimmed lights. It was a haven all to myself.
At that time in my life, a couple of small things were causing me to suffer. Not the kind of emotional pain that haunted me, keeping me from doing anything else, but the kind that nagged me when I awoke, or maybe even in the middle of the night. The kind that stopped me from having peace. The kind that made me feel blah in my stomach when I thought about it. My wife was also experiencing some suffering at that time. Regardless of how small these issues were compared to the problems of others, they were still troubling.
That afternoon in the sanarium, I prayed for my wife, feeling the burden of her suffering and probably that of my own. I began to cry. Then a strange thing happened. A few images and thoughts of suffering people around the world came to my mind. The most distinct image was that of a young man in Indonesia whose wife had been washed away in the recent tsunami. Though I’ll never know if the man actually existed, he was standing outside alone, his home and life destroyed. Other thoughts and images flashed through my mind, staying on one before moving to another. My crying developed into a long period of weeping. I thought of God suffering with these individuals.
When I suffer personally or cry, I feel almost spiritually transported to a place where my soul feels more connected to God. But in the stillness and solitude of that sanarium, I felt something more—a type of empathy I’d never experienced before. In my own suffering, I had a glimpse, in some small way, of the suffering of others. Despite the vast differences between what I was going through and what those I envisioned were going through, I felt my own suffering was positioning me to co-suffer with them. Of course, it was a temporary experience, and my suffering could never be compared to theirs. I don’t know the pain of those I wept for. I didn’t feel the same suffering they did. Despite that, I feel I was empathizing with them, miles away.
My experience that day led me to think about how personal suffering can allow us to be co-sufferers with others. Our own suffering can remind us of the pain others are going through, even if it’s different from our own. When we suffer, we remember others are suffering too. We remember we’re not alone.
In the book Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom relays the words of his professor, Morrie Schwartz, dying from Lou Gehrig’s disease. Morrie stated that, now that he was suffering from his own illness, he felt closer than ever before to others who were suffering. He described how he’d seen on television people running in Bosnia, afraid of getting hit by gunfire. Morrie said he just started to cry, feeling the agony they were going through, as if it were his own. Because of his own illness, he felt the suffering of people thousands of miles away. That is co-suffering.
Co-suffering is about empathizing with others. It’s sharing in the act of suffering. In my suffering, I suffer with you. In your suffering, you suffer with me. It’s a way to remember that we’re with each other through difficult times. And God is with us as well.
My membership to that fitness club expired a few days later and I never returned. Even so, that experience taught me about how personal suffering, even temporary, can lead us to think about others going through difficulties. Just as I think more about those with chronic pain when I have some kind of temporary physical pain myself, through our own suffering, we can begin to feel the suffering of others. As different as our suffering may be, we can co-suffer with them.
I would not have had that co-suffering experience that afternoon had I not been experiencing suffering myself, though it was temporary and very different than the suffering of those who flashed through my mind. And I wouldn’t have been suffering as much personally if I hadn’t also been feeling my wife’s suffering. It was all connected.
Empathy: A First Step
How can we better empathize with those who are suffering?
In a world where we usually focus on ourselves, our family, and our friends, feeling the suffering of people we don’t know might take work. Without being intentional, we may not be able to feel empathy.
When we relate to others, in person or in spirit, we position ourselves to share in their suffering. Finding ways of becoming more aware of suffering in the world and in our local communities can help us better tune in to it. This can be through connecting with nonprofits and faith-based organizations, which can offer us ways of learning about and empathizing with those in need. Documentaries and online videos can expose us to the problems of people we’ll never have a chance to meet. Intentionally learning about people and their problems increases our ability to empathize and co-suffer with them, even if we don’t know how to really help them.
It’s okay not to know what to do when information about world atrocities overwhelm us. We’re not heroes. We’re co-sufferers. Empathizing with others is one small step in living out our faith and caring for those in need. But it’s not enough.
It is true that empathy won’t stop droughts that make poor people poorer. It won’t stop people feeling they need to sell their bodies because they can’t find other ways of earning an income. It won’t stop wars or people who do harm. However, empathy can at least make us better people who are more emotionally connected with and concerned about the suffering of others. It is an important Attitude of the Helping Heart, as empathy can lead us further on our journey of helping those in need.
The truth is, on our own, we probably won’t know how to deal with the world’s problems. As Christians and people who want to do good, we may not know how to truly help. We may not think we have the ability. Nevertheless, we can begin asking ourselves and each other, “What can—or should—I do to help?”Through empathizing with others, we can begin to get clarity about what roles we can play to make the world a better place. Empathy is critical to having a helping heart.
This is an edited excerpt of the book, 7 Attitudes of the Helping Heart: How to Live Out Your Faith and Care for the Poor, available as a paperback, ebook, and audiobook.
John Christopher Frame is the author of 7 Attitudes of the Helping Heart: How to Live Out Your Faith and Care for the Poor, as well as Homeless at Harvard: Finding Faith and Friendship on the Streets of Harvard Square, and Increase Your Leadership Impact: 6 Simple Strategies to Connect with God’s Wisdom, Make Tough Decisions, and Inspire Those Around You. He loves traveling on the cheap, visiting outdoor markets, balcony gardening, and working in quirky cafés in his neighborhood. He also enjoys spending time with his wife, whom he met while buying a carpet at a souvenir shop in Istanbul, Turkey. You can download his free action guide, 7 Days to Upping Your Prayer Life, Loving Others, and Having More Joy, at: http://www.johnchristopherframe.com/prayer