Patient in Affliction

As I work with people the one thing that seems to come up often is, "What do I do with my distress and discomfort?" For many of them, the answer is, "Make it go away." Making it go away is typically accomplished by some type of self-destructive behavior, Addictions, eating disorder, self-injury behavior, emotional reactivity, all tend to help people avoid their discomfort and distressing feelings. The answer is not to develop skill to make the distress go away; that is what the behaviors do. The answer is to develop the ability to be distressed without becoming self-destructive. The Bible gives insight into this by stating we should "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." Romans 12;12. Being "patient in affliction" as about learning to suffer well. Of course, this is easily said but not so easy to do. In fact, for many, it is one of the hardest things they will ever do. The one thing that seems to be true, though, is that the more you practice feeling distress and discomfort, the more you are capable of feeling it.