Having come through the 15th annual remembrance of the two-week period surrounding my son’s accident, death, and funeral, I have not words of my own. So I give you some from Nicholas Wolterstorff, who lost his son, Eric, in a mountain-climbing accident. His reflections on this loss and the resulting grief can be found in his book, Lament for a Son.

Suffering may do us good - may be a blessing, something to be thankful for. This I have learned.

Ordinarily, we think of the powerful and wealthy as blessed; they enjoy the “good things of life”. But maybe the little ones, the downtrodden peoples and assaulted persons, are blessed as well. I do not mean that they will be compensated for their sufferings. I mean that perhaps the treading down is itself a blessing, or can become a blessing, rich as any coming to those we call “the lucky ones”.

Suffering is the shout of “No” by one’s whole existence to that over which one suffers - the shout of “No” by nerves and gut and gland and heart to pain, to death, to injustice, to depression, to hunger, to humiliation, to bondage, to abandonment. And sometimes, when the cry is intense, there emerges a radiance which elsewhere seldom appears; a glow of courage, of love, of insight, of selflessness, of faith. In that radiance we see best what humanity was meant to be.

That the radiance which emerges from acquaintance with grief is a blessing to others is familiar, though perplexing. How can we treasure the radiance while struggling against what brought it about? How can we thank God for suffering’s yield while asking for its removal? But what I have learned is something stranger still:  Suffering may be among the sufferer’s blessings. I think of a former colleague who, upon recovering from a heart attack, remarked that he would not have missed it for the life of him.

In the valley of suffering, despair and bitterness are brewed. But there also character is made. The valley of suffering is the vale of soul-making.

But now things slip and slide around. How do I tell my blessings? For what do I give thanks and for what do I lament? Am I sometimes to sorrow over my delight and sometimes to delight over my sorrow? And how do I sustain my “No” to my son’s early death while accepting with gratitude the opportunity offered of becoming what otherwise I could never be?

How do I receive my suffering as blessing while repulsing the obscene thought that God jiggled the mountain to make me better?