I am posting an excerpt from readings by Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
All suffering must lead the Christian to the strengthening of his faith and not to defection. While the flesh shuns suffering and rejects it, the Christian sees his suffering as the suffering of Christ in him, For he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He bore God’s wrath on sin. He died in the flesh, and so we also die in the flesh, because he lives in us….So for the Christian suffering becomes a protest against the devil, a recognition of his own sin, the righteous judgement of God, the death of his old man, and communion with Jesus Christ.