Several years ago a rabbi wrote a book that became an immediate best–seller: "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

If people read the psalms, they could have saved themselves the cost. The psalmist asks the rabbi’s question in reverse: "Why do the wicked prosper?" Good things happen to bad people; bad things happen to good people. My question combines these two inescapable facts of human existence: "Can any good come of suffering?"

I begin with a piece of bumper sticker wisdom, too earthy for direct quote and best paraphrased as "excrement occurs." When we create it, we try to sanitize and scoop it out of sight. But when it happens to us–look out! We rage against the dying of the light, against the suffering of the innocents, against a world that has infant mortality and cancer, war and grinding poverty. Newspaper headlines do not support the theory of intelligent design. Either the Creator had a screw loose or we have fallen far from an intended perfection. I think it’s the second, and that makes my question more urgent: "Can any good come of suffering?"

If you are the one suffering, this is no abstract question. If we have a toothache, the world shrinks to the size of that toothache. Imagine the concentrated pain of chronic illness, debilitating disease, or the daily pang of hunger. What good can come of this kind of suffering?

A dying friend offered an answer. He faced his final days with such equanimity and grace, it scared me. "How do you do it?" I demanded, full of the anger I thought he should be feeling. "I’m in good company," he said, and handed me a note he had received from one of his friends: "The wood of the cross is the tree of life."

The passion and death of Jesus carved the path he found himself on. Not only had the trail been blazed, but my friend had the best of traveling companions. My friend found that the good that came of his suffering was a Good that suffered with him. It didn’t always ease his pain, but my friend never felt alone. Even when he feared God had forgotten about him, he clung to Jesus’ cry from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34; Psalm 22:1) Someone had already experienced his darkest moments — and was there in the darkness with him.

Traveling companions
During Holy Week a pastor reminded his congregation: "Pay attention to the psalms each day. We know the plot-line of the Passion by heart. But if we want to know what was on the mind of Jesus, all we have to do is pray the psalms." Jesus himself found a traveling companion in the psalmist: The psalms appointed for those dark days between Palm Sunday and Holy Saturday give voice to his suffering. More powerfully, they show all of us God’s presence with us in despair, suffering with us. Finally, the story ends, not at the cross on Friday but at the empty tomb. The apostle Paul’s promise to the Christians at Rome rings both powerful and true: "For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his" (Romans 6:5).

On Easter Sunday we shout with conviction: "Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!" If we believed Paul’s words, we could add the names of all of our dearly departed. "Harriette is risen! She is risen indeed!" "Dad is risen! He is risen indeed!" One good that comes to those who suffer is the certain knowledge that the Good comes to them, wrapping them in resurrection. This is most certainly true!

Consider the caregivers. Can any good come of their suffering? For if we care for someone who suffers, we become co–sufferers. Caregivers become an extension of those who suffer. We feel what they feel; we hurt when they hurt. I heard familiar vows afresh from a friend whose wife was dying. As she slowly wasted away, he lost weight and gained wrinkles. His friends fretted and finally intervened. He quoted Scripture at us: "‘We are one flesh,’ just like the Bible says. Maybe I gave her a bad rib...." It’s no surprise that widows and widowers, parents and partners of people who’ve suffered chronic disease often succumb themselves to some illness after their beloved has died. Exhaustion weakens their immune system, but spiritually they are bound by love to the one who has died.

Mother of sorrows
A one–flesh union binds mother and child. In cultures and centuries with high infant mortality rates, the mater dolorosa (the Sorrowful Mother) takes on huge significance. These images feature Mary, the mother of Jesus, clad in black and weeping. I saw Mary’s tears in the face of a young mother at her newborn child’s deathbed. She looked as if the air was being sucked out of her, breath by breath. The two, mother and child, had been roommates, had shared residence in her body for almost nine months. "I feel ripped apart," she said, and her words vividly describe the way many co–sufferers feel. When a beloved child or spouse dies, caregivers become amputees. Tethered so long to the life of another, they have grown together, sharing breath, bread, and deep love. For a long time caregivers have sensation in that missing limb: a flickering impulse from something that is no longer there.

The Portuguese language has a word for this kind of loss: saudade. I asked a Brazilian friend what this meant, and he gave a description rather than a definition: "It is like a mother cleaning the room of a child who has died." We all know people who keep the room of the deceased exactly as it was, hoping that the beloved will return. In her recent memoir of mourning, A Year of Magical Thinking (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), writer Joan Didion remembers that she discarded none of her husband’s shoes: After all, he might need them. If she threw them out, she had to admit he wasn’t coming back. She hung onto those shoes. Their presence was better than the abyss of absence that opened before her.

Daily graces
Didion’s "magical thinking" triggered memories of my own. In the months immediately following my husband’s death, I lost things, important papers I had in hand moments before, earrings he had given me, and always the keys to our house. I spent hours frantically searching for them before shaking myself back to reality: "You haven’t lost something; you lost someone. You’re not going to find him because you are looking for someone who is not here any more. He’s gone — none of the rest of this stuff really matters." Oddly, the realization calmed me. Invariably, I found what I’d been looking for. The peace that settled in my soul grounded me in what did matter: a good that comes of co-suffering.

When my husband was dying, we took our compass from spiritual truths, not the medical ones. We refused to live without joy, taking refuge instead in what I came to call "the daily graces." As we wandered that "valley of the shadow of death," we discovered a table had been prepared for us (Psalm 23). Every day we received our daily bread. Manna fell for us, often from unexpected sources. We tried out a new recipe — and it worked. We plotted a new route for the daily walk — and it was beautiful. Friends brought an entire Thanksgiving dinner to our doorstep — in July.

At night we counted our blessings; there were many. On the worst days, we laughed: "The best thing that happened today — was that it ended." Those awful days were actually few in number. We were being tutored in the daily graces. Along with the great love of family and friends, the little things sustained us.

The daily graces are goods that come to caregivers. God holds them, and God holds them in the only way God can: through gifts of laughter and imagination, the love of family and friends, the beauty of God’s good creation, and the kindness of the neighbor. This is most certainly true!

The suffering we cause
Finally, consider the suffering we cause. "Excrement occurs" because we all contribute our share. I’m not talking only about genocide, rape, and the atrocities of war. Rather I refer to those smaller, festering injuries that we inflict on others and on ourselves: a grudge gone on way too long, a harsh word, gossip masquerading as "Christian concern," failure to forget an injury done, and that chronic lack of self–esteem that invites us to underestimate and discount the impact of our actions on other people.

While these more minor, personal faults pale in comparison to the death of a child, they kill by inches. They are as corrosive as cancer — and can be fatal over time.

Experiencing suffering, directly or indirectly, makes us aware of the suffering we create, another good that comes in the wake of pain. For we suffer the suffering we inflict on others. A daughter had not spoken to her mother in months, punishing her for a callous remark. "It really hurt me that she would still say that," the daughter said, "but I realized the silence hurt more than the slight." She phoned her mother to re–establish contact, only to discover that her mother had been trying to figure out how to reconnect. They reconciled, promising not to let so much time pass by next time. Each knew there would probably be a "next time," but now both had a way of negotiating.

In a more political context, two families in the Middle East, one Israeli and one Palestinian, both lost young sons to the ongoing violence in their shared land. Instead of seeking revenge, they bonded to create an organization that would work toward peace by eliminating prejudice. Forgiveness got the project rolling. The families had to forgive the soldiers who’d inadvertently killed their sons; they had to forgive their enemies; they had to forsake the natural instinct for revenge.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed, forgiveness is unnatural; everything in us strains for retaliation. Therefore, we beg for forgiveness daily. Indeed, in the Lord’s Prayer, we request forgiveness immediately after we ask for the daily graces:

"Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us...."

Daily they come: forgiveness, along with daily bread; manna from heaven, along with forgiveness. Forgiveness is the good that comes to those who cause suffering. It comes with our daily bread, and it is as vital to our everyday flourishing. This is most certainly true!

One of my locker–room buddies snapped her towel at no one in particular. "You believe in Jesus," and her words were an accusation. "Where is God in Darfur?"

Here’s what I wanted to tell her. God doesn’t give us an explanation for suffering; God gives us God’s Son. The good that comes of suffering is a Good that suffers with the ravaged villages and raped women in Darfur, with the dying and terminally ill, and with those who grieve. God suffers with us. That may not seem like enough–but death is not the last word. We hear God’s final word in the Easter proclamation: "He is risen!" He is risen indeed.

Martha E. Stortz is professor of historical theology and ethics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif., and the author of A World According to God.