Kierkegard & Suffering

My friend, Laura Parker, sent me this quote and I LOVE IT:

"Comfortable, cozy Christianity was the order of the day in nineteenth-century Denmark, much as it is in twenty-first century North America. In contrast, our Christian Scriptures were written out of the crucible of suffering. There is much talk about a "Christian worldview," but I have yet to hear expectation of suffering as part of the discussion. Yet for most followers of Jesus for most centuries, suffering was an expected reality, an acknoledged aspect of their worldview. Kierkegaard observed, "Little by little, I noticed increasinglly that all those whom God really loved... had to suffer in this world. Furthermore, that that is the teaching of Christianity: to be loved by God and to love God is to suffer." Little more needs to be said in support of his observation than that we follow a crucified lord. To live in this fallen world is to experience pain--if not our own, then our neighbors; if not our neighbors', then Jesus', as we fill up what is lacking in His suffering (see Colossians 1:24). So Kierkegaard rightly said, "The nearer to Thee, the more pain." The closer we are to Jesus, the more His heart becomes our heart and His pain our pain over lost and broken people. He also knew the reality of 1 Peter 4:13: "To the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation." So he wrote, "I know that in Thy love Thou sufferest with me more than I, Infinite Love." Throughout Kierkegaard's Journals, suffering is not portrayed as a pain to be endured, but as the way to joy. In the midst of the suffering, prayer is the consolation, the source of strength, and the means of transformation. As God worked in Kierkegaard through his prayers, joy emerged."