purpose for suffering: to enable us to help others in their suffering. In the opening verses of his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul says that God “comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (1:4). Sometimes God’s reason for allowing trials and sufferings to come our way is so we may be able to minister better later on to others who are suffering. Again the writer of Hebrews