Offer it up. My grandmother used this phrase with her children, and my mother, in turn, used it with me. It’s a kind of verbal heirloom, a gift of wisdom from a generation that knew suffering all too well.
 
We know it to be true that God will work through our suffering if we invite him to. We know it and we have seen it — we have only to look at Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary.
 
But, often, I invite God into my suffering only to tell Him where I want Him to stand. I make an offering of suffering but expect God to do something very specific with it. Teach me this, please. Give me this specific grace. Show me this specific answer.
 
The happy ending in today’s Gospel is not the alleviation of the sorrow Martha and Mary feel because it isn’t alleviated, Lazarus is still human, and death still awaits him. Someday, his sisters will have to mourn at his tomb. That loss and pain will not be avoided.
 
The happy ending is that he is resurrected now, and in doing so, brings so many to belief. The happy ending is that Martha and Mary do not abandon discipleship because things didn’t work out exactly the way that they wanted. They run out to meet Christ, eyes dim with tears. They fling themselves into his company and onto his providence.
 
They made an offering of their suffering, and their happy ending is that their offering was accepted.
 
“You are not in the flesh, on the contrary, you are in the spirit.” — Romans 8:9