Soul growth and suffering.

Human beings respond to overcome what are perceived as threats. Your abilities to find strength, as you overcome what challenges you, are enhanced by your sense of hope and your sense of being connected in some way to the creative energy that is God. The soul grows not because you suffer. The soul grows because you reach out to overcome; you reach beyond the challenges. It is in the reaching that the soul is strengthened. It is not in the suffering.

All lives are blessed, even those who experience great suffering. They may believe their suffering is unfair, out of balance with others, unreasonable, and yet there is something within each individual that takes that suffering and transforms it into an awareness—whether that awareness is intense or subtle, long-standing or temporary—that awareness that there is a connection to a form of energy that is beyond the bounds of human life.

When you are in agony and suffer, you may feel abandoned, unfairly judged, forgotten, unimportant, singled out. All those expressions of suffering are known to God. All those feelings have with them an accompanying strength that can be engaged. There is no difficulty, no suffering, no anxiety, no fear that exists beyond the possibility of hope. It is not a blind hope. It is a hope that is generated from the spirit within. It is the outreach of spirit, of your soul, to the creative energy that is the collection of all that exists. It is a connection to God. It is a connection to one another.