Over the years I’ve heard many a Christian teacher preach the view that when a Christian suffers, that God will use that suffering experience eventually to minister to others.  I have to say, that view has often troubled me.  I don’t think that suffering always has some grandiose purpose.  I don’t think the outcome is always somehow a ministry prospect.  Any time that we try to take something profoundly effecting experience like tragedy and try to apply formulas those formulas are doomed to fail.  

What I DO think about about suffering is that God is with us through it all.  That He promises to walk hand and hand with us in it.  And I do think, somehow, that suffering does have significance.  That it is to say, if we allow it to, suffering can bring us closer to God.