For those of you who seem to be suffering fruitless pain, a word from Amy Carmichael:

But to what end is pain?  I do not clearly know.  But I have noticed that when one who has not suffered draws near to one in pain there is rarely much power to help; there is not the understanding that leaves the suffering thing comforted, though perhaps not a word was spoken; and I have wondered if it can be the same in the sphere of prayer.  Does pain accepted and endured give some quality that would otherwise be lacking in prayer?  Does it create that sympathy which can lay itself alongside the need, feeling it as though it were personal, so that it is possible to do just what the writer of Hebrews meant when he said, “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body“?

. . . What if every stroke of pain, or hour of weariness, or ay other trial of flesh or spirit, could carry us a pulse-beat nearer some other life, some life for which the ministry of prayer is needed, would it not be worth while to suffer?  Ten thousand times yes.  And surely it must be so, for the further we are drawn into the fellowship of Calvary with our dear Lord, the tenderer are we toward others, the closer alongside do our spirits lie with them that are in bonds; as being ourselves also in the body.  God never wastes His children’s pain.  (Rose from Brier, p. 124)