Suffering: An Invitation to Intimacy
“Suffering drives us closer to the heart of God more than almost anything else.”
Elisabeth Elliot
I am an Army chaplain’s wife, married for over nineteen years. Joe and I love serving God together. But our marriage—like all lives—was not spared suffering.
In our first two years of marriage, Joe attended Airborne School and Ranger School and then deployed to a combat zone for a year. When he returned home on New Year’s Eve, I believed our fairytale could finally begin. Instead, suffering followed us into the early years of our marriage in ways I never expected.
Our story includes mountaintop moments and deep valleys. Yours probably does too.
Suffering is a season marked by distress, pain, or hardship. Sometimes it comes through no fault of our own. Other times, it is the result of sin or poor choices. Either way, I want to offer this truth: suffering is an invitation to intimacy with God—if we choose to respond to it rightly.
Jesus Meets Us in Our Suffering
John 4:1–26
To understand the power of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman, we need context.
After Assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC, foreigners were resettled in Samaria (2 Kings 17). The remaining Israelites intermarried with them, forming a mixed-race, mixed-faith people. The Samaritans then began to syncretize their faith with idolatry. Additionally, Samaritans accepted only the first five books of Scripture and worshiped at Mount Gerizim instead of Jerusalem. Jews viewed them as heretical and ethnically impure.
The hatred ran deep. Jews often traveled miles out of their way to avoid Samaria altogether.
Yet Jesus did not.
Jesus Enters Her Suffering
Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, broke every cultural rule:
He spoke to a woman publicly.
He spoke to a Samaritan.
Women normally drew water in the morning or evening. This woman came at noon because she was avoiding people. She was ashamed. Lonely. An outcast.
Instead of recoiling, Jesus asked her for a drink. He placed himself in a vulnerable position, inviting trust and connection. Her water jar would have been ceremonially unclean to Him, yet He asked anyway.
Jesus wasn’t disgusted by her story. Her pain didn’t put him off.
He entered it.
Just as Jesus met this woman in her shame and isolation, He meets us in our suffering. Often, it is through suffering that our deepest need becomes clear. For her and for us, that need is living water.
Jesus Restores Our Identity
Jesus gently exposed the woman’s past—not to shame her, but to free her.
She had been married five times and was living with a man who was not her husband. In Jewish culture, even two divorces were frowned upon; three were the maximum allowance. Her life story labeled her as immoral and unworthy.
Yet Jesus saw her.
He did not bring up her past to condemn her. He brought it into the light so it would no longer define her.
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17)
Jesus offered her living water—a phrase used uniquely here in John’s Gospel. It signifies the grace of God through Christ, flowing water that gives eternal life. No relationship could quench the thirst she carried. Only Jesus could.
Then He revealed His identity: “I who speak to you am He.”
The Messiah. The One she had been longing for.
When she recognized who Jesus was, she finally understood who she was meant to be: a daughter of God.
A Personal Reflection
For years, I longed to be a mother. But at some point, my desire for children became greater than my desire to be in God's will. I had to learn surrender the hard way.
Even Jesus suffered in obedience. In the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before His crucifixion, He prayed three times for the cup of suffering to pass—yet submitted fully: “Not my will, but Yours be done.” (Matthew 26)
God does not waste our suffering. He enters it, redeems it, and uses it to shape us.
When we begin to understand who Jesus truly is, we can finally see who He created us to be.
Jesus Redeems Our Story
John 4:28–30, 39–42
The woman left her water jar—the very thing she came for—and ran back to her town. The outcast became the first evangelist. Many Samaritans believed because of her testimony.
Water in this passage symbolizes the Holy Spirit—the true source of life and fulfillment. What she once tried to find in men, she found fully in Christ.
“The suffering you endure is not the end of your story—it becomes the platform of your testimony.”
Suffering is not a barrier to intimacy with God.
It is often the doorway.
Conclusion: Come to the Well
Years later, my husband left the Army. We sold the five-bedroom home we believed would be filled with children and moved to Missouri.
Through that obedience, our son came to us through adoption. Later, we adopted again. Then, in our fifteenth year of marriage, during a move, we discovered I was pregnant. We never pursued fertility treatments because we were told pregnancy would not happen for us, BUT God.
What was once one of our deepest sorrows became one of our greatest testimonies.
If you are in a season of suffering you did not cause—Jesus wants to meet you there.
If your suffering is tied to sin or poor choices—Jesus still wants to meet you there.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
He does not want you to walk away in shame. He wants to enter your suffering and redeem it.
This week, in the midst of pain, turn toward Jesus:
Sit at His feet
Spend time in His Word
Worship, even when it hurts
Whether you are suffering or resting on the mountaintop. He alone satisfies, and He is worthy of our worship.