July 28th, 2026
by Rachel Mahoney
by Rachel Mahoney
Pastor Isaac preached on Colossians 1:24-29 this Sunday, and he was honest about it before he even started: "I don't like this message." Paul writes, "Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you," and Isaac's first reaction, like most of ours, was come on, that can't be real.
By the end, he'd shown why it is real. Paul isn't performing stoicism. He's saying his suffering has become a place where he identifies with Christ, on behalf of the church.
I want to sit with that a little longer than the sermon had time for, because there's a real danger hiding just underneath it.
The Line that Helps, and the Line that Hurts
"Did you ever imagine your suffering may not be about you?" is a genuinely good question. Most of us curl inward when we're hurting: the deer that jumped out, the AC that broke at the worst time, the diagnosis that landed on the wrong week. Paul's answer to his own suffering wasn't to minimize it, but to widen the lens. This is for the body of Christ, not just for me.
Here's the danger. That same sentence, unmoored from Paul's specific context, becomes something people say to each other in the hospital waiting room, at the funeral, in the small group where someone finally admits they're not okay. "This isn't about you. God's going to use this for someone else."
And scripts don't leave room for someone to just be devastated for a while.
Paul earned the right to say "I rejoice in my suffering." He'd been beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned, and he wrote those words from inside all of it, not as advice for someone else's pain, but as his own hard-won posture toward his own.
What I Learned, but only Afterward
I think of the years after my dad died. There were seasons where I couldn't see a way through, where all I could see was what other people still had that I'd lost. That's an honest, ugly part of grief nobody warns you about: the comparison, the resentment that creeps in when you're the one who's empty-handed. I didn't have anything close to Paul's rejoicing available to me then.
But years later, I found myself sitting with a friend who'd lost a parent too early in their life, the kind of loss that reshapes a whole life. And I knew what she needed, because I remembered exactly what I had needed, even though no one could walk that road for me.
That's the only place I've found Paul's words to be true for me, not in the middle of my own pain, but years later, on the other side of it, watching what God had quietly built in me through that suffering, without asking my permission first.
Grace Still has to be Met
That gap, between the suffering and whatever it produces, is the part worth naming carefully, because suffering doesn't automatically produce anything. John Wesley talked about growth in Christ as grace offered and then received, over and over again, rather than pain doing the work by itself. Two people can walk through the same loss and come out very different: one more closed and fearful, another more compassionate, more open, more like the friend I had the privilege of becoming.
That's not a promise, and it's not a formula. For someone wrestling with clinical depression or deep trauma, "meeting grace" isn't a decision they're failing to make every time they can't get there. That's where patience, professional care, and people who simply stay become as much a part of God's grace as prayer itself.
The way Paul does, and the way I'm trying to here.
One Step for this Week
If you're the one suffering right now, Paul's rejoicing is not a bar you have to clear today. Grieve badly if you need to. The hope of glory is real, but it isn't a performance requirement.
If you're not currently in the thick of it, here's the assignment. Find one person this week who is, and sit with them without trying to fix, explain, or hand them a verse.
No script. Just presence.
That's the whole thing Paul earned the right to say. Start by earning the smaller version of it.
A prayer
Lord,
We don't want to rush anyone's pain, including our own. Where we're hurting, give us permission to not have arrived yet. Where someone near us is hurting, take the fix-it words out of our mouths and replace them with the willingness to just stay.
Do in us, over time and without our noticing, whatever you did in Paul. We're not asking to feel it today. We're asking to trust that you're not finished.
Amen.
By the end, he'd shown why it is real. Paul isn't performing stoicism. He's saying his suffering has become a place where he identifies with Christ, on behalf of the church.
That's not resignation. That's solidarity with a purpose.
I want to sit with that a little longer than the sermon had time for, because there's a real danger hiding just underneath it.
The Line that Helps, and the Line that Hurts
"Did you ever imagine your suffering may not be about you?" is a genuinely good question. Most of us curl inward when we're hurting: the deer that jumped out, the AC that broke at the worst time, the diagnosis that landed on the wrong week. Paul's answer to his own suffering wasn't to minimize it, but to widen the lens. This is for the body of Christ, not just for me.
Here's the danger. That same sentence, unmoored from Paul's specific context, becomes something people say to each other in the hospital waiting room, at the funeral, in the small group where someone finally admits they're not okay. "This isn't about you. God's going to use this for someone else."
Said to a person mid-collapse, that's not comfort. That's a script.
And scripts don't leave room for someone to just be devastated for a while.
Paul earned the right to say "I rejoice in my suffering." He'd been beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned, and he wrote those words from inside all of it, not as advice for someone else's pain, but as his own hard-won posture toward his own.
What I Learned, but only Afterward
I think of the years after my dad died. There were seasons where I couldn't see a way through, where all I could see was what other people still had that I'd lost. That's an honest, ugly part of grief nobody warns you about: the comparison, the resentment that creeps in when you're the one who's empty-handed. I didn't have anything close to Paul's rejoicing available to me then.
But years later, I found myself sitting with a friend who'd lost a parent too early in their life, the kind of loss that reshapes a whole life. And I knew what she needed, because I remembered exactly what I had needed, even though no one could walk that road for me.
I didn't hand her a verse. I just sat there, because I understood what sitting there was worth.
That's the only place I've found Paul's words to be true for me, not in the middle of my own pain, but years later, on the other side of it, watching what God had quietly built in me through that suffering, without asking my permission first.
Grace Still has to be Met
That gap, between the suffering and whatever it produces, is the part worth naming carefully, because suffering doesn't automatically produce anything. John Wesley talked about growth in Christ as grace offered and then received, over and over again, rather than pain doing the work by itself. Two people can walk through the same loss and come out very different: one more closed and fearful, another more compassionate, more open, more like the friend I had the privilege of becoming.
The suffering was the same. What differed was how grace was encountered and received.
We don't get to tell anyone their suffering is "for" something. We can only testify, looking back, to what God brought out of our own suffering.
The way Paul does, and the way I'm trying to here.
One Step for this Week
If you're the one suffering right now, Paul's rejoicing is not a bar you have to clear today. Grieve badly if you need to. The hope of glory is real, but it isn't a performance requirement.
If you're not currently in the thick of it, here's the assignment. Find one person this week who is, and sit with them without trying to fix, explain, or hand them a verse.
No script. Just presence.
That's the whole thing Paul earned the right to say. Start by earning the smaller version of it.
A prayer
Lord,
We don't want to rush anyone's pain, including our own. Where we're hurting, give us permission to not have arrived yet. Where someone near us is hurting, take the fix-it words out of our mouths and replace them with the willingness to just stay.
Do in us, over time and without our noticing, whatever you did in Paul. We're not asking to feel it today. We're asking to trust that you're not finished.
Amen.
Rachel Mahoney
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