Biblical teaching and personal experience combine to teach that suffering is the path to holiness or maturity. There is always an indefinable something about people who have suffered. They have fragrance which others lack. They exhibit the meekness and gentleness of Christ. One of the most remarkable statements Peter makes in his first letter is that ‘he who has suffered in his body is done with sin’ (4:1). Physical affliction, he seems to be saying, actually has the effect of making us stop sinning. This being so, I sometimes wonder if the real test of our hunger for holiness is our willingness to experience any degree of suffering if only thereby God will make us holy.

—Dr. John R.W. Stott, The Cross of Christ