Redemptive Suffering: Understanding Suffering, Living With It, Growing Through It.

This compelling book addresses important questions on the meaning of suffering: Why must we suffer? Does suffering have a purpose? How can we grow through our suffering to find peace, and give peace to others? O’Malley suggests that while reflection and introspection cannot in themselves give meaning to suffering, suffering that is beyond our control can be transformed through action.

There is an undercurrent of bravado in O'Malley's writing that shuns self-reflection, equating it with self-pity. Facing our pain and acting responsibly is the only way out. "Wisdom is making peace with the unchangeable,"he says. We are not responsible for our unmerited sufferings, "but we are responsible for what we do with the effects, what we build with the rubble fate has made of our lives."