We know that God loves us unconditionally as he chose to leave Heaven—where He lived in eternal bliss—and become man to suffer in atonement for our sins (to pay the penalty for them), so that salvation could be ours. Knowing this, our suffering is allowed by God not to hurt us, but out of love to purify us, teach us, and guide us towards Him. Christ’s suffering was good because without it we would have no salvation, and so our suffering is good too. We simply lack the knowledge and wisdom to understand how that can be. However, we know that God loves us and that He knows what He’s doing, so we must trust in Him to make everything good in the end. We must patiently endure whatever is sent our way, since we fully understand God is using our suffering to draw us closer to Him for our salvation. In recognizing this, we can trust whatever he allows—no matter how horrible the suffering is—since it is all allowed for the good of our souls.
Without suffering (our cross) we wouldn’t know Christ...not the way He wants us to know Him. Since Jesus says to know Him we need to deny ourselves (choose to suffer and trust in God), and follow Him (live His commands) (cf Luke 9:23). The Bible is filled with explanations about the blessings from suffering. We must trust that God is trying to show us His blessed ways through our crosses. We need to open our eyes (remove our sin to increase our faith) and see what He wishes us to learn from every moment of our lives so we can change our wrong ways to become more beautiful in His eyes, and receive all the gifts He wishes to bestow on us for a life of joy.
The peace God sends to those who trust in Him while they’re suffering is a beautiful gift He bestows on His faithful. That gift is waiting for us if we simply accept God’s will for us. We can also sanctify our souls (be made worthy of heaven) by making our souls ready for heaven while we live on earth. Offering up all of our suffering, without complaining, to the Father in union with Jesus on the cross—in atonement for all the sins we’ve committed after our baptism, since every sin after baptism has to be covered (cf. 1 Peter 4:8)—will purify our souls so we can enter into heaven. We shouldn’t wait until we’ve died to pay the penalty for our sins, since we’ll pay straight down to our last penny in purgatory as a result of God’s just judgement for all our offenses (cf. Matthew 5:25-26). If we make ourselves right with God now, by offering up our daily suffering, we can pay the penalty for our sins and purify our souls so we can enter directly into heaven at the moment of our death. None of our suffering should ever be in vain, when we can unite it with Christ’s suffering for our souls and the souls of others during every moment of discomfort we experience here on earth.