“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
– Khalil Gibran

I love this quote as I do Khalil Gibran. I found the article “Suffering and the Soul” and have taken the paragraphs that really stuck with me and shared them below that go hand in hand with Gibran’s statement. I could never say it better than this if I tried. I have linked the FULL article to the title heading below 🙂 Enjoy!

Suffering and the Soul

by Dr Judith Rich

“To the ego, mistakes are failures. To the soul, there are no mistakes and there are no failures. There is only learning. The soul is here for the distinct purpose of unfolding its agenda in its earthly expression. Whatever is required for its evolution is grist for the mill and is taken on without consideration of the ego’s suffering that may result…

To paraphrase Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, there is no fixing or curing required for the soul, only caring. We must learn to live with a conscious awareness of what our individual soul requires for its full expression. This will most certainly require that we learn how to live with pain, both emotional and physical, for when a soul loses its way, it is because we, the human host, have lost our way. Pain is the soul’s alarm system that we’re off track and that attention and care are required…

Seen through the filter of cultural conditioning and ego, suffering appears horrific. Seen through the eyes of the soul, pain and suffering are paths to deepening. Suffering can take us to our knees and strip us bare of all illusions. It is here that the ego is forced to give up denial and stand face-to-face with the driver of its destiny. It may be that only through a total surrender of ego, in which a person may appear to be completely broken or lost, that one can truly find one’s way to truth.

We cannot know the gifts suffering provides to the soul’s evolution. This is part of the mystery of the soul we must live with. Human nature abhors mystery. We want certainty and predictability. Cultivating the ability to live with uncertainty and learning to live in the mystery are ways of taking care of the soul for it thrives in the mists of uncertainty where all possibilities exist.

Sometimes the soul can only find release through suffering and ultimately, physical death. For the soul, physical death is not the end of its journey, but a passage to the next classroom. To the soul, there are no summer vacations. School is always in session.