I read what you wrote elsewhere,
@lilygrace , about how someone dismissed your suffering by saying, "Jesus had it worse than you." What do they know anyway? Are they you?
I understand where you're coming from because that's what's been unraveling for a while now: the fact that I was abused, and witnessed abuse, as a child. Some of this was unspeakable. A brother in the Lord came to me and said, "You've suffered terrible abuse, haven't you?" I couldn't say a word, but he wasn't expecting me to. He embraced me instead.
I've called myself a liar... those who abused me did the same... and I saw what happened when those who suffered with me sought help. They weren't believed and when our abusers discovered what they had done, they made them pay dearly for it. It tore me to pieces over and over again. I shattered many times by my 11th birthday, which marked my first attempt at suicide. I couldn't live with what I had heard and seen. I knew too much.
What I did, no one else knew about. I attempted suicide again and again, over 14 times in various ways, but I always emerged unscathed and very much alive. This only magnified my agony because it seemed that I was cursed to live with hell on this earth with no escape. No one knew of this except for the Lord, of course. God knows all things and how I suffered, and He wasn't silent. What did the Lord say in my misery?
Do not be afraid, for the day comes.
So what happens to us, then? We survive hell on this earth until that day comes. That was the day the Lord revealed His power in me. But the revealing of His purpose after all those years, and the comfort of His presence and voice which the Lord promised to me, did not change what I had endured. The Lord didn't erase the past because if He were to do so - and He can do this, for nothing is impossible to God - then I would not be who I am now.
Remember when the Lord appeared among the disciples in the locked room? He did this for the sake of Thomas who could not believe unless he was able to feel the scars on His hands, and the spear wound in His side... so the Lord came to Thomas and bid him to do just that. The Son of God was not ashamed of those wounds for they not only spoke of what He had endured, but also of His resurrection from the dead and the victory this heralded.
The same is true of you and me, lily. It's true for every one of us in Jesus Christ. What we endure on this earth, no matter what that might be, is what makes us who we are in the Lord. I hope that makes sense to you, because you asked a question in this vein.