Our sufferings are Christ's sufferings

I Thessalonians 2:14-15

Our sufferings are His sufferings and the church's sufferings and the sufferings of the righteous throughout history.

In this section Paul makes a direct comparison between the sufferings of the Thessalonians from their countrymen with the sufferings of Christians in other places with the sufferings of Christ with the sufferings of the prophets. Why does this matter? I think that when we were suffering in China because of persecution from another American teacher, from the inquiries of the government and from serious illness that we were often tempted to wonder why the rest of Christians, especially those in the US, could get by with so little suffering. We understood that our sufferings were in some small way completing the sufferings of Christ for a fallen world, but I don't think that I ever thought of the cross as a central point around which all suffering for righteousness sake clustered for all of human history. That is, I did not feel when I was lying on a narrow gurney in a local Chinese clinic getting an IV by multiple shots twice a day instead of by bag to try to avoid infection, that somehow this connected in any specific way to the prophets of old or the ancient Church through the Cross. But this is the way I see this passage as presenting it. All suffering for the cause of Christ connects together through the cross.

Thank you, Lord, for taking all my suffering on Yourself, so that the little I have suffered is tied eternally to You through the Cross.