How Do Lds View Suffering

[Ahab]

When I was younger, I was shocked when my wife told me about all the times she had seen doctors intentionally end someone's life. I was doubly shocked that she approved of such things. Now that I'm on the downhill slope, I find myself understanding her position much better and agreeing with it. When it's time for me to go, I fully expect my wife would respect my wishes. If it ever comes to that, I would imagine we wouldn't do anything unless we both agreed it was time.

Are you talking about not doing anything to prevent death from naturally happening, or actually doing something to cause death?

Both situations are very complex. I hope you realize what you are doing without ever getting to the point of considering murdering someone that you love.

You don't have to hate to be able to murder.

[jkwilliams]

Are you talking about not doing anything to prevent death from naturally happening, or actually doing something to cause death?

Both situations are very complex. I hope you realize what you are doing without ever getting to the point of considering murdering someone that you love.

You don't have to hate to be able to murder.

 

It would be my choice to end my life. My wife would not be murdering me but would simply be respecting my wishes. 

 

All of this is hypothetical, of course, and I hope neither of us is ever put in such a situation. And yes, it is complex. 

[JAHS]

Then if we can choose to avoid suffering, are we justified in doing so? 

I would if I could, but since when could anyone avoid it?  It is inevitable. 

[jkwilliams]

I would if I could, but since when could anyone avoid it?  It is inevitable. 

 

Not all suffering is inevitable.

[The Nehor]

No but it is God's will that we experience everything that happens to us in this life. God does not cause someone to kill another person, but unfortunaely such things are part of this life experience. How we handle the bad things is what God is looking at. That is what gives those things meaning.

 

By that logic painkillers should be anathema.

[JAHS]

Not all suffering is inevitable.

Of course. There's nothing wrong with avoiding it if possible, but no one can escape the fact that we will suffer in this life.

[jkwilliams]

Of course. There's nothing wrong with avoiding it if possible, but no one can escape the fact that we will suffer in this life.

 

Yep. My feeling is that, if I'm at the point where I'm just causing others to suffer, it may be time to just be done with it.

[JAHS]

By that logic painkillers should be anathema.

I didn't say that. Avoiding pain by medical means is also part of this life. God gave us brains to invent such things, but no one can avoid all pain and suffering in this life. 

[ERayR]

It would be my choice to end my life. My wife would not be murdering me but would simply be respecting my wishes. 

 

All of this is hypothetical, of course, and I hope neither of us is ever put in such a situation. And yes, it is complex. 

 

You all are dealing in hypothetical.  Last year I dealt with the reality.  My wife refused anymore hospitalization and so we called hospice and they assisted us through a few months that she had left.  I don't believe in suicide or assisted suicide but still don't know what would be classified as such.  Is it suicide to refuse treatment?  Is it assisted suicide to not take them to a medical facility even if they don't want to go? 

[HappyJackWagon]

I'm confident that God will be compassionate in judging any person who is miserable, needy, pained enough to end their own life. While it is clearly not a thing we would want to promote I think Euthenasia is a compassionate way to allow someone to have some control over their own life.

 

I don't see value or morality in suffering for the sake of suffering.

[jkwilliams]

You all are dealing in hypothetical.  Last year I dealt with the reality.  My wife refused anymore hospitalization and so we called hospice and they assisted us through a few months that she had left.  I don't believe in suicide or assisted suicide but still don't know what would be classified as such.  Is it suicide to refuse treatment?  Is it assisted suicide to not take them to a medical facility even if they don't want to go? 

 

I'm so sorry you had to go through that. The lines get kind of blurry, don't they? 

[HappyJackWagon]

You all are dealing in hypothetical.  Last year I dealt with the reality.  My wife refused anymore hospitalization and so we called hospice and they assisted us through a few months that she had left.  I don't believe in suicide or assisted suicide but still don't know what would be classified as such.  Is it suicide to refuse treatment?  Is it assisted suicide to not take them to a medical facility even if they don't want to go? 

I'm sorry for your loss. These are the weightiest matters we deal with in life.

 

People will invariably come to different conclusions and have a variety of desires for the end of their lives or their loved ones. It seems compassionate to allow people to make the decisions that impact them the most.

[Duncan]

Correct me if I am wrong but here in Canada either the Supreme Court or the Parliament passed a law and now the other side has to make it legal or adopted but doctor assisted suicide is or will be possibly legal. However you have to be of sound mound and can't have been to coerced into doing this. One problem it opens though is some depressed person can walk into a hospital and request the hospital takes their own life and a doctor who is for the idea has to do it. It seems goofy to me

[ERayR]

I'm so sorry you had to go through that. The lines get kind of blurry, don't they? 

 

You sometimes begin to wonder where the lines really are.  One has to make your decisions and live with the consequences.  I do not regret the decisions that were made because for the most part they were her decisions.  What was hard was carrying them out.

[jkwilliams]

You sometimes begin to wonder where the lines really are.  One has to make your decisions and live with the consequences.  I do not regret the decisions that were made because for the most part they were her decisions.  What was hard was carrying them out.

 

I can't imagine how hard that must have been. 

[savedbygrace]

My wife used to work in nursing homes, and she has told me that assisted suicide happens quietly all the time. Morphine is often prescribed for pain but given in lethal doses. Having seen so much suffering, she is adamant that people should have the right to end their lives. I don't think her attitude is typical for a member of the church.

I can sympathise with your wife's point of view. Having worked as a nurse I know that this happens quietly. However, I can't somehow subscribe to the idea of having the right to end our lives. From the Catholic, and possibly other denomination's perspectives, our lives are God given and therefore not our own to end. He has the number of our days, yet I sympathise with those suffering long term life limiting conditions. But would legalised euthanasia eventually have physicians making the decision for us, whether we would want it or not?

[jkwilliams]

I can sympathise with your wife's point of view. Having worked as a nurse I know that this happens quietly. However, I can't somehow subscribe to the idea of having the right to end our lives. From the Catholic, and possibly other denomination's perspectives, our lives are God given and therefore not our own to end. He has the number of our days, yet I sympathise with those suffering long term life limiting conditions. But would legalised euthanasia eventually have physicians making the decision for us, whether we would want it or not?

 

As it is, we don't have the right to make that decision. I never thought I'd be OK with assisted suicide, but my wife has motivated me to rethink where I stand. 

[savedbygrace]

Several years back, we visited my grandfather who lived in another area of North America. He was paralyzed by a stroke, and had been in that state for several weeks.

He privately begged me to kill him. I had to quietly say sorry, but that's one thing I couldn't do for him. Perhaps I'm unkind for declining. I frankly don't know. Perhaps someday I will know.

Since then, I've allowed my vet to let a cat go when she was suffering. Same for an aging dog. I hesitate to do such a thing, however, for a human.

 

This morning, my son was terrified of going to the dentist. And I had to explain to him that he could be brave and told him that pain is one of the things we are here to experience on earth.

 

Perhaps one of the reasons for pain is to help us one day better understand and appreciate what Christ went through for us, even if it is a tiny glimpse of such pain and compassion.

Frankly I have no idea why it is the way that it is. But I am confident that it is for our own good.

I think that you may be right, in that through our own experience of suffering we may derive a glimmer of understanding of the suffering of Christ. And maybe gain the courage to endure, because He did for our sakes. And as you say, we may gain some insight into His compassion

[Ahab]

You sometimes begin to wonder where the lines really are. One has to make your decisions and live with the consequences. I do not regret the decisions that were made because for the most part they were her decisions. What was hard was carrying them out.

I'm sure it's hard no matter what you do or don't do. The line for me is the point of knowing what "I" would be doing and whether or not "I" felt right about it. Knowing that I'm doing what I feel and think is the right thing to do would get me through it, even though it would be hard to do it.

[savedbygrace]

Several years back, we visited my grandfather who lived in another area of North America. He was paralyzed by a stroke, and had been in that state for several weeks.

He privately begged me to kill him. I had to quietly say sorry, but that's one thing I couldn't do for him. Perhaps I'm unkind for declining. I frankly don't know. Perhaps someday I will know.

Since then, I've allowed my vet to let a cat go when she was suffering. Same for an aging dog. I hesitate to do such a thing, however, for a human.

 

This morning, my son was terrified of going to the dentist. And I had to explain to him that he could be brave and told him that pain is one of the things we are here to experience on earth.

 

Perhaps one of the reasons for pain is to help us one day better understand and appreciate what Christ went through for us, even if it is a tiny glimpse of such pain and compassion.

Frankly I have no idea why it is the way that it is. But I am confident that it is for our own good.

I think that you may be right, in that through our own experience of suffering we may derive a glimmer of understanding of the suffering of Christ. And maybe gain the courage to endure, because He did for our sakes. And as you say, we may gain some insight into His compassion

My wife suffers daily from a lot of health problems and sometimes it is very hard to deal with, for her and for me. For me because I do not like to see her suffer. She still has good times, though. She still enjoys living. And I enjoy having her with me when we can be together. But there are still some times when her suffering really gets her and me down. And yet we still have our good times too.

One of the things I say often is that we are mortal only once in our lives, (usually, except for NDE-ers or people who die and come back and then die again later), so this is the time to experience what it is like to be mortal. It's not like we really want to die but it will happen anyway sooner or later. Until then we'd both just rather go on living, even if we have to suffer some more before we each die. Living is something we both like.

Thank you for sharing this. You have demonstrated positives despite suffering, you both still have good times, enjoy being together, and you both still like living. These times must surely give you the strength to endure, hopefully until the time when life ends. I think God carries us during difficult times, but sometimes it must be difficult to trust in that.

[VideoGameJunkie]

I've suffered from physical and mental pain before and suffering sucks big time. The only way I can be comforted during this pain is to think that my hero Jesus Christ went through 10 times worse physical and emotional and mental pain in the garden and it makes me know I'm not alone and I always try to remember not to be a baby and that others have it worse. When we suffer it can make us appreciate the good times in life when we didn't suffer and how much of a blessing those times were. I also agree that every pain we experience is to grow. That doesn't make it any easier to deal with. I have a chemical inbalance in my brain right now that makes painful and uncomfortable moments seem more painful than they really are, so I'm not looking forward to my future suffering. I'm afraid of suffering. It's my biggest fear I pray to pass on peacefully in my sleep when I'm old and still functioning, but not everyone gets what they hope for.

[savedbygrace]

Do you believe that God "makes" people suffer?  Or do you believe that suffering is a part of this mortal existence that all of us agreed to participate in? (or perhaps a third alternative).

 

To put things in context, my mother was diagnosed with MS about forty years ago.  The past ten she has really deteriorated.  While it has been very difficult for her, if you ask her how she is, even today, she'll say "fine."  My children have learned to to caring and compassionate towards someone who struggles to feed herself and form complete sentances.  Perhaps I'm being selfish, but if she had taken an easy way out ten years ago my children would have missed out on knowing, loving, and learning to serve there grandmother.

 

"And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good."

D&C 122:7

I love the points you have made about you children learning to care and serve which would not have happened so soon perhaps if they had not been exposed to their Grand mother's suffering. A lesson in compassion, for me, when I am feeling particularly selfish, thank you

[ERayR]

As it is, we don't have the right to make that decision. I never thought I'd be OK with assisted suicide, but my wife has motivated me to rethink where I stand. 

 

It depends on what you classify as assisted suicide.  If you limit it to giving something to end life I still would not support that.  If you include ceasing medical treatment I support that although would caution that it was difficult to support that decision as you watch them slip slowly away.  However, watching the torture, that for some medical problems, we call medicine is extremely difficult. 

[VideoGameJunkie]

Am I sinning if I take pain medication for my herniated disk in my back and a bad shoulder? Is that against the word of wisdom? I feel deep down that I need it for the pain and am amazed at the progress in medicine that we have. It's like modern medicine is the answer to prayers of people from the past.

[JAHS]

Am I sinning if I take pain medication for my herniated disk in my back and a bad shoulder? Is that against the word of wisdom? I feel deep down that I need it for the pain and am amazed at the progress in medicine that we have. It's like modern medicine is the answer to prayers of people from the past.

Why would you think that is against the word of wisdom?