The path through suffering

"I believe that God never expects us to feel no suffering or pain when it pleases Him to visit us with affliction. There are great mistakes upon this point. Submission to God's will is perfectly compatible with intense and keen suffering under the chastisement of His will. Troubles in fact not felt are not troubles at all. To feel trouble deeply and yet submit to it patiently is that which is required of a Christian. A man may submit cheerfully to a severe surgical operation, in the full belief that it is his duty to submit, and that the operation is the likeliest way to secure his health. But it does not follow that he does not feel the operation most keenly, even at the moment when he is most submissive. It was a wise saying of holy [Richard] Baxter when he was dying of a painful disease. "I groan, but do not grumble." I ask my children and everyone who may read this autobiography not to forget this. I ask them to remember that I felt most acutely my father's ruin, my exile from Cheshire with the destruction of all my worldly property and I have never ceased to feel them from that day to this; but I would have them know that I was submissive to God's will and had a firm and deep conviction that all was right, though I could not see it or feel it at the time."

J. C. Ryle A Self-Portrait: A Partial Autobiography