Praise be Jesus and Mary, now and forever
God does not usually suspend the laws of nature. Things happen according to those laws. So it is that when people hurt each other and inflict suffering on each other, that suffering is painful, it hurts, sometimes it even causes death, according to the laws of nature.
And when God does suspend those laws, we call that a miracle, and we see a miracle in the book of Daniel, when the three young men are not hurt by the flames. When God does suspend the laws of nature, it is for the purpose of teaching us, reminding us that those laws obey God. Those laws are in place for a purpose. God is the creator and the master of those laws, even when he leaves them in place, even when things run their course according to the laws of nature.
In the book of Daniel, again, we see the three young men who are thrown into the furnace by their persecutor, King Nebuchadnezzar. And we see two things that subsequently happen, two features of this miracle. God allows the miracle, why? So that we believe, we are reminded that even when laws run their course, God nevertheless is their master.
So what happens? The three young men are thrown into the furnace bound, tied by the strongest men in the army. And the only thing that is burned are those ropes that bound them. When Nebuchadnezzar looks into the furnace, he sees them loose again. So that suffering that the king tried to inflict on them does what? It merely burns the ropes that held them bound.
And the second thing that we see is that in that suffering, in the furnace, they are not alone. There are the three young men plus a fourth, as the appearance of a son of God, a prefiguration of the Son of God.
So when God permits us to suffer, when there is no miracle, but the suffering inflicted upon us hurts and even kills us, nevertheless, that suffering that God permits does no more than free us from the ropes, the bondage, the limits. It frees us from, above all, the fear of suffering itself. It’s one of the amazing fruits of the redemption. Suffering is there. We are freed from fear of it. We can face it, endure it with Christian fortitude, Christian joy even. It does nothing to us except free us.
And then we never suffer alone. The Son of God is always with us. That prefiguration is fulfilled. In the Old Testament, it was a mere prefiguration. In the New, it’s a fulfillment. The Son of God is with us because he himself enters that furnace, not just when it’s a miracle and nobody gets hurt, but he enters that furnace with us even when it hurts, even when he himself is hurt and killed. We never suffer alone, and that’s what gives us true motivation and endurance in suffering.
I recently met the husband of a woman whose story I heard, short version, amazing, edifying story. She was her whole life debilitated by one condition after another, a life of suffering. She says she had a miraculous experience of Our Lady appearing to her, and the only thing Our Lady said in that miracle of an apparition was, “You will always be in pain, but I will always be with you.” “The pain will not go away, but I will be with you. My son will be with you.” And that knowledge that she was not alone gave her the strength to suffer with joy.
And that is a pretty amazing miracle when we think about it. We love to hear about healings, they’re great, but that miracle of enduring suffering with resignation and even more with joy is, I think, an even greater miracle.
So God does not usually suspend the laws of nature, and suffering hurts, but that suffering that God permits frees us and unites us even closer to God, who suffered for our sake. 
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever