On Suffering

We are told that even those tribulations which fall upon us by necessity, if embraced for Christ's sake, become as meritorious as voluntary sufferings, and every missed meal can be converted into a fast if taken in the right way.
- letter to Mary Willis Shelburne Aug 10, 1953

.. you know already the things we have been taught - that suffering can (but oh!, with what difficulty) be offered to God as our part in the whole redemptive suffering: that suffering itself does not fester of poison, but resentment does: that sufferings which (heaven knows) fell on us without and against our will can be so taken that they are as saving and purifying as the voluntary sufferings of martyrs and ascetics.
- letter to Mrs. D. Jessup Jan 5, 1954

taken from "Yours, Jack - Spiritual Direction from C.S. Lewis" Paul F. Ford ed.

I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.
- Colossians 1:24 - NRSV