The perspective on Purgatory and the lifting up of our suffering

I've been thinking about Purgatory and it seems to me that some people, perhaps most people, might be fearful of Purgatory. The more I think of it, the more I am excited to go there. I think we need to be more fearful of earth rather than Purgatory.

There are more distractions on earth to pull us away from our focus on God. But in Purgatory our souls' focus is to get to Heaven. There are no distractions. It is pure purgation - cleansing our souls and making us ready to enter Heaven. So that is nothing to be afraid of. Sure it might be painful, but I think in some ways earth must be a lot more painful than purgatory. We can lose focus while on earth. We can lose our faith. There are so many things coming against us on earth. Once in Purgatory the soul knows that the next stop is Heaven.

I won't belabor this topic. I just ask you to think about it. Bring it to prayer.

The second thing I've been thinking about is suffering and how it can be dangerous to us if we don't lift it up to Jesus and join it with his suffering on the cross. If we don't lift it up, the suffering and its effects stay with us and it assaults our bodies and souls. But on the other hand, if we take it, but don't hold it, but join it to his passion, then it has redemptive value. That might be part of the problem we have on earth. Perhaps many of us well meaning Christian people willingly take on the suffering given to us each day, and we may even ask to take on the suffering of those we love to spare them the pain, but if we stop there we might get ourselves into trouble. Instead, if we let the suffering pass through us and up to the cross, then we learn from it, become more compassionate from the experience, but then realize that we can't heal it or take it away: that by giving it to Jesus we are dealing with suffering in the correct way. (too long of a sentence I know, but I'm tired.)

These are my thoughts anyway. I hope they are all correct and in line with Jesus' teachings because I don't want to say anything in error. I just want to share my thoughts because if I hold them in my mind I will never fall asleep tonight.