Pain and Suffering

By Linda Mihalic

Pain is a localized or generalized unpleasant bodily sensation or complex of sensations that causes mild to severe physical discomfort and emotional distress and typically results from bodily disorder (such as injury or disease); a basic bodily sensation that is induced by a noxious stimulus, is received by naked nerve endings, is associated with actual or potential tissue damage, is characterized by physical discomfort (such as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leads to evasive action; mental or emotional distress or suffering.Merriam-Webster Dictionary
  To suffer is to submit to or be forced to endure, to suffer martyrdom; to feel keenly; to put up with the inevitable or unavoidable; to endure death, pain, or distress; to sustain loss or damage; to be subject to disability or handicap.Merriam-Webster Dictionary


“People today are paying a lot of money to feel better about feeling bad.”
—Linda Mihalic


Pain and suffering are forms of initiation that are most commonly associated with the physical body. They are granted a greater degree of reality than they deserve because the pervasive thought form that you are a body who has a soul instead of a soul who wears a body as clothing.

Adults teach toddlers and small children that pain is real and bad and to be feared by how they react when a child falls down, scrapes a knee, etc. Women who run to the child—dramatically exclaiming, Oh! Are you hurt? Did you hurt yourself? Let me see! We’ll make it all better!—are especially guilty of this. What a lesson for a large ego in a small body! A lesson on how to get attention using a method that will work every time. That’s how an adult creates and nurtures an appetite for pleasurable gratification through drama in an ond soul wearing a very young body, not in a very young soul.

Further, not all forms of pain or suffering are physical. Many forms are emotional, and some are mental. A well-developed appetite for many mental and emotional forms of pain and suffering are today lumped under the single heading of Depression:

Depression Cost the US $326 Billion Per Year Pre-Pandemic, a 38% Increase Since 2010 Boston, May 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/—Today PharmacoEconomics published the latest installment of a 30-year research program tracking the true cost of major depressive disorders (MDD) in the US. The current study finds that the economic burden of MDD in 2018 rose 38% since 2010, affecting 17.5 million adults at a total cost of $326 billion. The burden includes the direct medical costs of treating MDD, the costs from treating comorbidities, suicide-related costs, and workplace productivity impacts.…The study's economic lens provides a unique perspective on the enormous impact of an illness that, according to a Household Pulse Survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has more than tripled in prevalence since the start of the pandemic. PRNewswire.


Edna Lister on Pain and Suffering

"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."—Romans 8:16-18. According to this proclamation, we are joint-heirs with Christ to the kingdom of God. We may share the good in his life as well as the pain and suffering he bore.—Edna Lister, Your Royal Birth, November 30, 1931, Edinburgh, Scotland.


From a letter to a woman who had severe osteoarthritis in her hands: Please think less of the pain. The largest thought behind your healing ideas is that you have pain. In reality, you have only perfection of bone, muscles, nerves, and bloodstream. If you continue to praise pain, you’ll have more pain. Declare, "I am pure Spirit now." Keep on with your therapy, not for pain but for health. Your mind is creating more pain. You are close to God. You are living right. Come on up. Have nothing to do with pain. Let it sing while you stand and declare that Spirit, which earth cannot touch, has already made your body perfect and so it shall manifest now.

The pain idea is part of an old illness idea. When you have forgotten how to use the word pain, Light shall suffuse your body wholly and your conscious mind will be absolutely clear. However, while you keep on carrying out pain ideas, some darkness is still underneath the surface. Cut out all the pain thoughts, even if you had them so bad the doctor had to give you medication. Declare freedom and heavenly perfection. This healing must come from and through your mental life. The appetitive soul keeps dictating pain until your rational mind takes it up, and will and desire then create it.—Edna Lister, March 10, 1952.


The right eye represents the materialistic side, which symbolizes love of power, willfulness, rebellion, arrogance, and pride of position, of fame and glory. Together, these appetites create small soul debts that accumulate into one large debt to pay. Headache pain on the right side of the crown means that some material issues remain to be lifted.

Your ascension may have shattered the dweller on the threshold of consciousness, but you still must pick up the pieces, the odds and ends. You must mother the life sparks you gather to redeem, but how do you when you need mothering yourself? You cannot bear or release the Light if you collapse under it. You must be responsible and act responsibly, even when you cannot see or recognize your blunder.

To declare, "This one thing I do," is reaching for the Light. You cannot be the spiritual mother until you stand where nothing can disturb or touch you. Declare, "I AM the Light." See the need and hold yourself ready in the Light to be alone in your sanctuary of soul silence. You are successful in your service in heaven and on earth. You can hold your plans on a cloud for fulfillment, and those whom you place in a room of Light. The bonds of Light are serene, unfailing, sustaining and soul-satisfying. You do not leave those in need without nourishment, but always hold every line of Light and responsibility placed in your hands.

The same strengths, the same continuous holding in serenity and in poise will take all your creations, responsibilities, and lines of Light from this high point to the next one. A next higher point, to which you must lift all, does exist. Only by having something to lift can you lift yourself higher. Go through the narrow way, the up way, and the right way. Get the needy ones to fish on the right side of the boat. Each has his personal Book of Life, and his own special line of divine guidance.

The Father has appointed you to full responsibility for mothering these lines. A mother hen cannot collapse on her brood. She sits over them lightly with her hovering wings outspread. Use your wings so lightly that no one knows that you are brooding. This shall be the exaltation of your glory in the silence, knowing the extension of your brooding abilities.—Edna Lister, November 18, 1953.


Edna Miriam again spoke of what surrender is. With pain, the tendency is to descend into the body. This is exactly the time to move up in consciousness and say, "Move in Father. Possess me and move through. Use me now. I am Thine."—Edna Lister, March 4, 1956.


The thymus must enlarge for eternal life, but this enlargement often causes angina. Most heart pains result from the thymus gland enlarging to release eternal life. Where there is internal conflict and little or no cooperation in soul, the heart may burst in a coronary. You cannot afford to leave this life with an atrophied thymus gland, so treat it with Light that expands it. "Thank Thee, Father, that Thy Light expands my thymus into perfection."—Edna Lister, July 16, 1956.


No one can resign from God — you can only regress to become "nothing," which is more painful than becoming "something." You have tried it, yet the process of becoming nothing is too painful to contemplate. Why is it so hard to give up self-pity? It is odd to be so foolish when heaven is so glorious.—Edna Lister, July 23, 1956.


What you have suffered and conquered was you. You had to lift every moment’s pain and force through your body. Your choice concentrated it in the space of a few short years instead of spreading it out in smaller doses over a longer period. Once the soul chooses to honor God above all things, ever striving to conquer self, all the powers and glories of heaven are opened to the soul’s ascension. It is glorious to look back on a path on which you struggled to do the highest possible right under trying conditions. Your conquering has made all heaven rejoice.—Edna Lister, September 1, 1956.


The higher you go, the more vulnerable you are to the loss of something or someone you thought you had saved. As you hold, you tend to invest your life with your love, and the life sparks you have invested in another are battered and ache when this happens.

You cannot be hurt unless you have used force, and you must pay that debt along with the world debt of pain and sorrow. Consequently, if you even touch force, you invest your own life, and thus can be battered. Naturally, a time comes when that forceful determination reacts, good as it may be. Still, force is used to cut off the rebellion and hatred of the one being lifted. How easy it is to become overly involved in the outer. Yet, it is important to hold, at any price.—Edna Lister, November 9, 1956.


Mind, Substance, and Power cannot be separated without creating debt. Emotion too often sends Power out as a cloud of force. Even if I say, "Let love cover this cloud," the force is still floating out there, and must touch the body to be ascended. When you have an accident, say, "Let this be lifted instantly to be ascended again with Mind and Substance." We have lived nearly 100,000 lives and this accumulated force needs lifting.

Any pain is the lifting of force. Do not whine about it because whining lets your lines of responsibility sag and someone else has to take up the slack. The fulfillment of the New Testament prophecy couldn’t come sooner: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world."—1 Peter 5:8-9.

First, when anyone speaks a name for lifting, raise your hands and declare, "Let all force about her be lifted out and up." Use your hands to scoop it in and raise it. Second, name her and pray about her and her lines: "Let the Power go forth to fill the body of Name, her family and all those on her lines." Then lift this force up and declare that the Father makes it into Light. Third, declare, "We lift all force this Power releases and declare the result a miracle."

Job became a martyr because of the pain and suffering he endured. Job thought he was perfect; Satan knew he was not, for Job declared himself perfect. Yet you cannot deny that you are perfect in some degree, for this is denying the Christ. God looks at you and sees perfection, every instant.

Use these I I AM declarations to build your vibrations higher: "I AM that perfect one, I AM. I AM a descended god. I declare that I AM that perfect one, I AM." Who will take you where? I AM. The goal of I AM Christed consciousness of God is to remain in the Light always. When you do not do this, you want to escape. If you want to be a martyr, you want to enjoy it longer. When you are hot with the zeal of the love of God you can say, "I AM God’s greatest miracle. I AM that beautiful one, I AM."

I have never permitted anything to kick me off the Path. When hit, I say, "God, hit the other side." When I broke my arm, I said, "This arm is Your miracle." I declared, "All fear is lifted from earth" when they set the broken bones. Lift the force associated with it. Ask for Power to move forth on it and lift the force again.

To descend in consciousness is to deny God, to deny the Christ. You need but to love God as a person always, not as anything else. This means that everything is His, from the smallest to the greatest. All is good always. And even when you transgress, declare God’s perfection through you. Be joyful. Joy is so very great that you need nothing other than joy. It’s so wonderful. Wear a smile on our face always. "I AM THAT GOOD, I AM" is expressing perfection as your personal expression.—Edna Lister, February 28, 1957.


Never ask why you suffer, just do your work until you move through it. "Thank You, Father, that You are using me to my fullest capacity now." God works through His agents, the Elect. Everyone must pay debts and lift pain. When it is your turn, lift it and go on with your life. One day you will say, "This is enough." You do not pay attention to it, but just go on. "This is good and it too shall speedily pass away."—Edna Lister, June 6, 1957.


We are leaving the mental age and entering the spiritual age, a combination of the mental and spiritual with the physical enfolded. Pay no attention to pain or illness, as you formerly did. The time is too important, you can no longer wait. God cannot hold the world back for those who refuse to ascend.—Edna Lister, September 24, 1957.


Let your statements be positive: "I love you where you are." No statement equals it, for it invokes the power of love and washes clean the heart of the one using it at the same time. We are fast moving into the time where only love can exist. The ones outside of love are the ones who will suffer pain, lack and limitation.—Edna Lister, October 27, 1957.


Repentance is based in the worldly vibration of shame, pain and pride.—Edna Lister, December 25, 1957.

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Edna Miriam Lister
1884—1971
The original Pioneering Mystic, Christian Platonist philosopher, American Idealist, Founder, Society of the Universal Living Christ, minister, teacher, author, wife, and mother.


Edna Lister


Etymology of pain: Latin poena "punishment, penalty, retribution, indemnification" (Late Latin also "torment, hardship, suffering"), from Greek poinē "retribution, penalty, quit-money for spilled blood,".

Etymology of suffer: from Latin sufferre, "to bear, undergo, endure, carry or put under."


References

Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, 2023.

The Holy Bible. King James Version (KJV). Public Domain.

Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. "pain, suffering." Merriam-Webster Dictionary. March 2024.

The Nag Hammadi Library. James M. Robinson, ed. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988.

The Oxford English Dictionary: Compact Ed., 2 vols. E.S.C. Weiner, editor. Oxford University Press, 1971.