There Is No Suffering in Heaven

I’m sitting in my dining room this morning as I write this. It might be my favorite room in our house because it’s the only one that stays clean. We recently moved to Korea, and have finally settled into an American-style home. I have decorated and made things as comfortable as I can for the people I love. Moving to Korea was a hard adventure, and this house is a quiet retreat, a relief.

Now, we might have to move.

At 8:00 a.m. yesterday, I accepted a teaching position. At 4:00 p.m., our property manager alerted us that the school bus shuttle that takes our children from home to their bus stop is being eliminated. This means my older children won’t have a way to get to school.  I’m supposed to be focusing on preparations to go back to work, but I’m completely stressed out about what to do. Do we stay and try to carpool with the neighbors for two years? Or, do we move and find something on the school bus line that is closer to our military post? We don’t know. There’s no plan, and there isn’t a lot of time to formulate one. We must simply trust God and believe that our temporary stress and pain is part of something better.

I’ve heard of a girl who put her temporary convenience on hold. When God called her to something hard, unbearable even, she simply said “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word be fulfilled” (Luke 1:38 NIV).

Mary, Jesus’ mother, was a teenage virgin who was told by an angel that she would have a baby, who would be God’s Son. Being an unwed mother in these times comes with some social stigma, sure, but in Mary’s day, it meant total ruin. This was more than stress. It could very well have been life or death.

Mary said yes to the suffering because she knew it was part of a larger plan, something bigger than she could ever imagine. Her faith in the Lord was so powerful, she didn’t let the potential consequences sway her from her God-given mission. She knew that what she would bear on earth was nothing compared to eternity with the Lord. Mary gave birth to the Messiah, and he grew up to save us all. I bet if we could ask her whether her earthly suffering was worth her heavenly reward, she would look at her boy, then look at us and reply with an emphatic, “Yes!”

The same is true for us. We will suffer here. Some sufferings will be small. My school bus shuttle is not a tragedy; it just stinks. Others will suffer huge losses like that of a child or spouse. Disappointment and grief are commonplace. We don’t have to look very hard to find them.

But in our suffering and struggle, there is always Jesus. Even when he feels quiet, or you’re mired down in the unending details of life, Jesus is there. Mary was able to endure suffering because Jesus was there. We can receive the same special gift.

The Lord loves you. He has a plan for you. You will still suffer, and sometimes you won’t get over it. But the suffering we experience here on earth will end one day. From the daily stress of life to the tremendous grief of loss—it will all be like a vapor.

I don’t know if Mary ever met Paul, the man who set out to destroy her son’s followers but was radically changed when he encountered Jesus. Paul knew suffering. He experienced both physical and emotional anguish as a new Christ follower. But Paul kept his eyes fixed on Christ, and in 2 Corinthians 4:17, he reminds us that “Our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” (NLT).

Our present struggles, no matter how awful, are only temporary in light of eternity. It’s hard to take that to heart when we’re smack in the middle of heartbreak. It’s almost unfathomable that forever doesn’t end when our bodies give out.

I don’t have any idea what you may be going through today, whether it’s an empty bank account or a broken marriage—maybe even the loss of a loved one. I beg you to remember, though, that the suffering is temporary. There is no burden God can’t remove in heaven. You will not have to suffer anymore. I know it’s painful now, your grief. I feel it, too, in so many ways. But God will not abandon us, and Jesus didn’t die in order to watch us suffer. He died so we could be in eternity with him, so we could be peace-filled.

When I think of Mary and her calling, I can’t help but wonder about the suffering she must have endured because of it. The suspicious glances, the harsh words, the flight to Egypt, that afternoon on Calvary, when she stood at the foot of the cross as her son took his final breath. She could have had a nice life with Joseph and their children, but she said yes to something bigger and more painful. Her suffering was in exchange for the birth of the one who removes ours. So let us always remember our pain is temporary. There is no grief in heaven.

Becky Yurisich is a full-time Army wife and mom, and an occasional teacher of first graders. She is an unapologetic follower of Jesus and the University of North Carolina Tar Heels. Becky holds a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from UNC, and dreams of writing a book. She blogs at beckyyurisich.com.

Photograph © Pearl, used with permission