Mark Pickup, who suffers from Mulitple Sclerosis, wrote a column about finding meaning and joy in suffering (not through suffering!) by uniting one's sufferings to Christ:
If sufferers are willing to let Christ be their interior guide and master, new dimensions to the kingdom of God will open to them. This has certainly been my experience after more than 20 years of serious disease that is slowing my body. Strangely (yet wonderfully) my inner self is being renewed day by day, just like St. Paul said. I am not alone in this revelation. Millions of ordinary people in each generation have discovered it too.
Christ has granted us - and I feel awkward even writing this - a special grace that transcends our suffering. Suffering carries the capacity to strip away all things extraneous to life, leaving only that which is essential.
What is essential? The light of Christ illuminating human hearts is essential. It warms and melts the terrible icy grip of human sorrow and grief. That's what is essential to those of us who suffer.
For myself, I can honestly say that the terror of physical destruction by disease is no longer my primary concern: abiding in the tender love of Christ has become preeminent.
