Suffering produces Hope

I love mathematic. From young I score best in mathematic. One of the magic of mathematic is given some information, going through some calculation, we get to know information we needed. Given x, by some calculation, we can get y, z or what so ever. We have same thing happen in bible

(Romans 5:3-4) Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

This verse is very contradict to my own understanding. First, I will never told to rejoice in sufferings, but mourn in sufferings. Who on earth going to rejoice in sufferings? “Yes, I am suffering in sick! Ya ho, I am broke.” No one is going to think like that right? Second, suffering produces perseverance. This is true some time but most of the time suffering produces disappointment, disappointment produces hopeless. Hey, it leads to opposite direction! This is wrong calculation. May be there is some missing element in the formula. Let us see the prerequisite of this formula.

(Romans 5:1-2) Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

As Christian, we have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. We believe our Lord is with us. We put our hope on him. We are not suffering alone, our Lord is suffering together with us. He will guide us to overcome to produces perseverance and character. And finally this will leads to hope on him. We put our hope of this life and eternal life on him alone. He is the only way.