Suffering and perseverance

Suffering is relative

I have always been comfortable with suffering. It was endlessly tiring, but it was the known. From a very young age, I knew my family didn’t have a lot of money. We went to a private primary school because my father was determined that all his children should have the best education within his meager means.

If it meant scrapping the fees together every term, that is what it took. I remember feeling scared and anxious as the second month rolled by each school term. It was the time when they called out the names of defaulters on the school ground. By the third week of the second month, they sent letters to parents, and, in the fourth month, they sent the children home.

Once, I was sent home from school. I felt so ashamed as I walked home. I imagined everyone in the street from the school to the house knew that I hadn’t paid my fees. Why else would I be walking home from school at 10:00 am? My mother saw me outside and told me to go meet my father. I went up to him and the shame on my face was evident. He already knew what happened.

He went to see his elder brother who always came to his rescue in such matters and I was back in school the next day. It may have been the only time I was ever sent home from school but it is a representation of the type of life I had back then.

While other kids were fantasising about prince charming, I was fantasising about getting hit by the convoy of a rich politician so my family would force him to rescue us from poverty in exchange for our silence. It was a beautiful dream, and I had every single detail planned out. That was my reality. Yet, I wasn’t entirely unhappy. I knew who I wanted to be. I had planned out my life. Suffering made me resilient. I was naturally good with money. I could plan, save and set achievable goals. I worked tooth and nail, fought hard, and never backed down.

That didn’t mean things always went my way. It just meant I had no option but to keep trying. To persevere is to hold out hope for something better in the midst of a bad situation. It is the ability to trudge on when you hit a fork in the road. It is a stubbornness founded on the knowledge of what is on the other side if you only keep trying.

My plans only succeeded when I prayed and trusted in the Lord. It is the only way to persevere. Before I found the gift of the Holy Spirit, I knew God but only in bits and pieces.

Suffering felt like an unbearable weight that sometimes made me hate the hand I had been dealt. I saw others who were more successful, people who got everything easy without putting in half the effort I made. It made me bitter, angry, resentful, jealous and unhappy. When I found the Spirit, I recognised that these negative emotions held me back from what was coming my way.

Who are you when the odds are against you?

When he came to the building, we made fun of him...a lot. He couldn’t speak English. We knew his name, yet we gave him a terrible nickname to mock him. Kids are mean but poor kids from the ghetto are terrible. We thrived on people’s pain because we were miserable and sought to fill the sadness in our lives by making someone else feel bad.

He was a champ. When we mocked and insulted him, he picked up words and gradually taught himself to speak English. He was enrolled at the same shitty public school as the rest of the neighbour’s kids but he made the best of a bad situation. He worked his ass off learning carpentry at a very young age. The money he earned went to books. He bought a Longman dictionary to cross-check every word we said for its meaning. He was determined to make something of himself.

Gradually, he earned our respect and though the nickname stuck; it was said with affection. I spent time with him, going through his homework, making sense of things he didn’t understand and helping him get his pronunciation right. He was not afraid to ask for help and it showed. When it was time to go to secondary school, he could write better than the other kids who had four years to learn.

In my neighbourhood, very few kids went beyond JSS3. Most of them dropped out to find work, earn a living and support themselves. He stuck it out until SS3. To pay for JAMB, he learned how to work with glass. The results came in and he was in a higher institution. His life was not easy, but he dug a borehole in the desert. That’s perseverance. That's suffering but knowing things won’t always be this way. That is the attitude to have.

A new outlook to suffering

My outlook on life changed the day I realised that everyone is running a different race. When I look at life like that, it is easier to enjoy the blessing God brought my way. My eyes became open to see people who had worked even harder but didn’t have what I had. It was humbling, and it made me thankful.  I changed my thinking from “Suffering is a part of my life” to “this is part of God’s plan and He will elevate me in His own time”. He who made promises to me will always fulfil them. He will never test me more than I can bear.

While I was sent home from a private school, my friends and neighbours went to public school. I was reading Ugo C Ugo, and they were barely literate. I was prepping to go to a Federal Unity School and their fates were sealed to more state public schools where resources were few and classes overcrowded.

In the midst of my suffering, they had it worse. I had food to eat. Meat with every meal. Sliced bread with milk and Milo. Bromate-free sliced bread. They ate two meals a day. One was N5 garri with sugar and the second meal was whatever they could scrounge up. They were always hungry.

God had blessed me with so much but I couldn’t see it because I was comparing my suffering to those who had far more than I.

Suffering is not the end. It is a temporary situation that will pass

The other day I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom and begging God to come through for me on a problem I was facing. The Holy Spirit asked me a question. “Do you think that I enjoy watching you suffer? No. The devil tempts you but I provide the grace to get past His temptation and into the provisions that God has set out for you. Trust that I will always have your back and I will come through for you.”

I have been reading the book of Jeremiah. Most of it was very difficult to read. Some punishment that God said he will mete out on them if they didn’t change their ways were just…. hard to read. Self-preservation is a human attribute that is the most difficult to overcome. In the midst of suffering, it is our basic nature to find a solution that works for us, albeit in that moment.

We believe that if we find a solution on our own, without involving God, it doesn’t make a difference. The question is…can you sustain your own blessing? If God doesn’t bless your plan, it will not last or you won’t find satisfaction in it. The Israelites always made their own plans and look where they ended up, from captivity to captivity.

Going to Calvary

I have recently developed a new outlook on suffering. I think of it as my own little part of Jesus’ cross. When I am faced with a bad situation, I imagine Jesus, carrying a plank of a tree on his back and walking on tired legs until he reached Calvary.

My suffering doesn’t have to equate His, but the same grace and Spirit that was available to Him is made available to me. I choose to take it. I am more at peace today when things don’t go my way. I still worry like crazy because it is a part of my basic nature but I worry with Jesus. I read the Bible to draw strength and remind myself of his promises. I attend Mass to receive Jesus, physically in my bloodstream and I listen to His message to fortify myself against any weakness the devil might try to exploit.

It is in suffering that the devil thinks I am at my weakest. Last week, the Spirit told me that my actions when I suffer, define me. I want to be the Christian that perseveres. I choose to see every setback with the hand of God working in that bad situation. I believe that when the time is right, he will elevate me to glory.

I expect bad situations to happen because that is the kind of person I am. Yet, with a grateful heart, I see the bigger picture. There are more people who have it worse than me. Humans who didn’t have my Privilege. If this is my lot in life, then I will handle it with the grace of God flowing through me. Walking on tired legs but never giving up. Holding out for something more. Not comparing myself to others but taking stock of my blessings and waiting on God who always defies logic to save me.