Blessings and suffering

Here's a bit from Nicholas Wolterstorff's "Lament for a Son." Wolterstorff lost his son to a hiking accident and in the course of the book he struggles to understand suffering and God's role in it. Towards the very end of the book he writes:
"Suffering may do us good - may be a blessing, something to be thankful for. This I have learned.
Ordinarily we think of the powerful and wealthy as blessed; they enjoy the 'good things of life.' But maybe the little ones, the downtrodden peoples and assaulted persons, are blessed as well. I do not mean that they will be compensated for their sufferings. I mean that perhaps the treading down it itself a blessing, or can become a blessing, rich as any coming to those we call 'the lucky ones.'
Suffering is the shout of 'No' by one's whole existence to that over which one suffers - the shout of 'No' by nerves and gut and heart to pain, to death, to injustice, to depression, to hunger, to humiliation, to bondage, to abandonment. And sometimes, when the cry is intense, there emerges a radiance which elsewhere seldom appears: a glow of courage, of love, of insight, of selflessness, of faith. In that radiance we see best what humanity was meant to be.
That the radiance which emerges from acquaintance with grief is a blessing to others is familiar, though perplexing: How can we thank God for suffering's yield while asking for it's removal? But what I have learned is something stranger still: Suffering may be among the sufferer's blessings. I think of a former colleague who, upon recovery from a heart attack, remarked that he would not have missed it for the life of him.
In the valley of suffering, despair and bitterness are brewed. But there also character is made. The valley of suffering is the vale of soul-making.
But now things slip and slide around. How do I tell my blessings? For what do I give thanks and for what do lament? Am I sometimes to delight over my sorrow? And how do I sustain my 'No' to my son's early death while accepting with gratitude the opportunity offered of becoming what otherwise I could never be?
How do I receive my suffering as a blessing while repulsing the obscene thought that God jiggled the mountain to make me better?"

When I read that it reminded me of Jesus speaking about blessing - and how odd his list of blessings were, the poor, the hungry, the sufferers, and yet maybe they're not so far off the mark:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 5:3-10