I have always viewed suffering as a terrible thing, and have done everything in my power to escape it for as long as I can remember. Lately, I have to ask myself, why is suffering such a bad thing, something I have been so desperate to escape? According to Romans 5:3-5, suffering is actually a good thing, because it produces endurance, character, and hope. Hope is a confident expectation, not in what we can see, but what is unseen; that is in the coming of the Lord, the salvation we have in Him, and the eternal life we will receive…