(1220) The road less travelled

The Road less travelled

I count on my fingers:
1. my friend from Thailand in a Petaling Jaya church
2. a lady from a small church with 4 children
3. a friend who moved out of the neighbourhood
4. a newly met friend who is retired and going back to her home country

1 is still suffering the after effects of divorce and missing her two grown children living in her husband's country. 2 - I see her swollen wrist valiantly painting her gate, although her husband offered to pay a man to do it. 3 - her swollen wrists after months of gardening and all kinds of DIY projects to beautify a rented house. 4 - her uphill and windy roads after a perfect youth - able to travel the world with more than enough pay and wonderful benefits that come with the job (being an ex-pat).

These are professing Christians and I could see much suffering. They each carry their respective cross. Is suffering and pain the only way to learning to hear God and obey him? Is human nature such that under normal circumstances few would need God?

Yet I see another group of people:
a. My millionaire well educated former classmate that chose western Buddhism
b. An elder cousin who seemed so self-sufficient and does not need God whom he is angry with
c. A neighbour who enshrines travelling and house cleaning after retirement
d. A cousin who is happily saving every penny. But as long as her mom with dementia is alive, she could not travel at all.

I would not say that the second group is any happier than the first group. Nor could I conclude that the second group suffers from nothing. Perhaps life is what one makes it of.