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My suffering provides me with the opportunity to show courage and patience. It provides you with the opportunity to show sympathy and help to alleviate my suffering. And it provides society with the opportunity to choose whether or not to invest a lot of money in trying to find a cure for the particular kind of suffering. A good God gives us a deep responsibility for ourselves, each other, and the world (for whether and how we flourish); and the free choice of how to exercise that responsibility. And it is very good for us to have this responsibility. Although of course a good God regrets our suffering, his greatest concern is surely that each of us shall show patience sympathy, and generosity, and thereby form a holy character. Some people badly NEED to be ill for their own sake; and some people badly need to be ill in order to provide important choices for others. Only so can some people be encouraged to take serious choices about the sort of person they are to be. For other people, illness is not so valuable.

- Richard Swinburne, Oxford theologian; link here