Suffering for Our Sanctification
This may be difficult to understand, especially during times of extreme turmoil or trauma, but it’s true: Whatever happens in this life, whatever God allows through His permissive will, is always for our sanctification.
God’s permissive will never forces us to suffer beyond our capabilities, even when it seems that way. He is our strength, and will strengthen us always. Through His permissive will we can receive great graces—if we don’t give in to the temptation of despair but instead allow His graces to flow into us.
Recently a reader asked me why God would allow her to marry an abusive man and to remain in a toxic marriage for so many years. Was that truly His will? Certainly she could see the gifts God had mercifully bestowed upon her during the course of her destructive marriage—mainly, her children—but the anguish of an abusive relationship has been understandably devastating. Why would God will allow that to happen to her?
The first thing to keep in mind is that God does not want us to be abused, mistreated, or to experience any other sort of evil. We suffer because of a specific evil that has entered our lives—not because God wants us to suffer. We live in a fallen world, and we’ve all been given free will—along with the freedom to respect or mistreat the gift. God doesn’t desire any sort of tragedy or trauma to befall us; we can see that in the book of Genesis, when God created the heavens and the earth and all therein. He created our world good—very good, in fact.
Our Lord only creates goodness, never deprivation or evil.
Yet mankind creates chaos. It was the original sin of Adam and Eve that introduced suffering, turmoil, and relational conflict into a once-perfect world.
“God made us plain and simple, but we have made ourselves very complicated” (Eccles. 7:29)
Relational conflict was created by mankind through sin. It wasn’t created by God, or willed by Him—yet He does permit it. Why would He do such a thing? Again it goes back to free will. We’ve been given the gift of free will for the sake of love. Without the ability to freely choose love, we cannot love at all. Without the ability to choose God, we are mere animals, here one day and gone the next.
Yet everything has its opposite. We can use our free will rightly, and love in a Christ-centered way—or we can abuse the gift of free will, and choose selfishness over selflessness. We can love other people, or we can use them.
It can seem difficult to understand why God permits the choices of others to traumatize and damage us in such harsh ways. God weaves in invisible threads, and we can never see the totality of the tapestry He’s designing for us.
Yet one thing is certain: All He does and everything He allows within His permissive will—no matter how seemingly dreadful—is always permitted for our greater good. His utmost goal is to save us, to help us touch the hem of His robe, to guide us toward His heavenly embrace and our eternal reward.
It’s crucial to remember that God hates abuse more than He hates divorce. Certainly marriage is designed to be forever, and a true sacramental marriage—full of mutual self-giving and loving companionship—is indissoluble. Even when one doesn’t feel love, love is present in a true sacramental marriage in which Christ is the foundation. In Three to Get Married, Bishop Fulton Sheen points out that in a healthy, God-driven marriage, there will be times when the partners may feel a dryness in the relationship. The gush of initial romantic love gives way to something deeper, something more worthy of the image of Christ within each members of the marriage. This is a form of purification:
“Another name for the purification of love is transfiguration, which means the use of a loss, or a pain, or a mediocrity, or a disillusionment as a steppingstone to a new anointing of Joy … Transfiguration in marriage comes through an intensive retraining of the ego. The more one gives up the self, the more one possesses self. It is the ego that stands in the way of all fine social relationships … the egotistic spouse precludes the possession in joy of the other.”
If a marriage is filled with unremitting abuse and coercive control, and there is no repentance on the part of the ego-driven spouse, then the union is tarnished, broken, perhaps never there in the first place. In order to give the gift of your true self in a balanced marriage, you must receive your spouse’s gift of self. There has to be reciprocity and complementarity. If there isn’t, there’s an imbalance of power and control. The Code of Canon Law (1153) states:
“If either of the spouses causes grave mental or physical danger to the other spouse or to the offspring or otherwise renders common life too difficult, that spouse gives the other a legitimate cause for leaving, either by decree of the local ordinary or even on his or her own authority if there is danger in delay.”
But why did God allow vows to be exchanged in the first place, when He knew free consent was not present (after all, no one consents to marrying someone who will abuse them)?
Our Lord of Divine Mercy knows what each and every soul needs for its sanctification. Often, the path there is strewn with hazards and wild beasts eager to attack, because again we live in a fallen world. Yet He travels with us and keeps us safe, holding us through the most immense traumas. He does this so that we, too, might reach our own resurrections.
Going back to the reader who asked why God would permit her to enter into a marriage that was abusive, I asked her about her spiritual life. What had it been like before her marriage? What was it like now?
And then she saw God’s immense mercy and love, as well as His plan for her eternal wellbeing. She realized that although she’s always been a faithful and devout Catholic, she’d been a bit lukewarm. It was through her suffering that she came to rely on Jesus exclusively. Her trials—including her difficult divorce—were teaching her complete surrender to our Lord. Through her trauma and the subsequent healing from the effects of abuse, she was growing ever more closer to Jesus.
And that’s what He wants. He allows trials because He knows exactly what we need for our sanctification. His goal is for our utmost good, so we will one day meet Him face-to-face in heaven. He redeems all tragedy and transforms it to be used for His glory and for the salvation of souls.
However, this doesn’t mean we should tolerate abuse or any sort of mistreatment. Our beloved Bridegroom wants more for us—He doesn’t want us to merely survive this life, but to thrive. If you’re experiencing abuse in your relationship, please seek help and support.
Suffering does not cause sanctification. If it did, everyone would be a saint because everyone suffers. If we don’t get this straight, we may inflict suffering on ourselves with the hope of getting more grace. Our humility toward God is what opens us up to grace; then when we suffer, we draw on the peace and strength from grace to deal with inevitable suffering (cf. 1Peter 5:5-7; James 4:5-10; Philippians 4:6-7; Proverbs 3:5; Isaiah 55:7-9).