Continuing my study of suffering, I have learned that a universal answer to suffering is important because it reflects on our understanding of and relationship with God. Some perceptions of Him that are brought up in the talk are depressing and false. The following are examples:
- Thirty-five years ago, one of my schoolteachers would not take medical help for a lump in her thigh because “God had given it to her.”
- In Relief Society one Sunday last year, a class member told us we shouldn’t concern ourselves with events in the newspaper because God is planning destruction before the Millennium anyway, and all we should concern ourselves with is our own righteousness and that of our children, and then we’ll be all right.
- A few years ago, one young woman’s confusion about God and suffering was central to her anguish and paralysis in the face of repeated violence: “I don’t know what it is God’s trying to teach me with my husband’s temper.” (A Latter-day Saint Theology of Suffering: Francine R. Bennion)
God does not delight in our suffering and misery unlike Satan. Heavenly Father desires man to have freedom, stability, peace, and prosperity; teaching them the way to achieve such a life. Man has their agency, and God granted them this gift, which he rarely intervenes. Earth is man's stewardship. Satan seeks to make mortality as miserable as possible, designing destruction.
