The most suffering that can be felt in the whole existence of the world for all of time can be no more than the amount that one person can feel at one moment.

I think the problem we have with brutal suffering allowed by a good God starts with a wrong assumption. How epic could the story be if there was no deep suffering to be redeemed? And all suffering is a nearing to that freedom. Is this not God’s argument to the man who knew the most suffering? God says to Job, “Who are you to say I am wrong to let you endure suffering?

She said with all the bitterness and frustration that had been building up within her, “Because, there is so much suffering! Why would a good God allow suffering?” We ask why is there so much suffering. So, as I’m thinking, it seems the only way to remove the suffering would be to remove the free wills that have caused it.

Like in many of these mandalas the trinity sign is in the middle signifying that despite all the suffering and betrayal, the god-head is still central and present to everything in this world. We can see the suffering on his swollen, blood-stained face, under the weight of the cross in the middle of the mandala. But in the middle we see Jesus, also suffering in excruciating pain, present and reaching out to them all.