Your trial is not the whole story

Peter puts two things in one sentence that we normally keep apart: you rejoice, and for a little while you have had to suffer grief. He does not ask you to pick one.
And he gives the trial a job. It is not punishment and it is not random; it tests the genuineness of your faith, which he says is more precious than gold - gold being the thing that gets refined by fire and still perishes. Note the timescale words he uses. "For a little while." "At the revelation of Jesus Christ." The trial is real and it is bounded. It is an episode in the story, not the story.
Scripture links:
- 1 Peter 1:6-7 - "though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith - more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire - may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
- James 1:2-3 - "the testing of your faith produces steadfastness."
You are in a chapter. You are not in the ending.