Growth Through Pain

Those who truly make a difference, those who are strong and committed, have experienced their fair amount of hardship and pain.
It doesn't seem to make it easier when we're going through the dark times, but when we look back and see the man who entered the dark forest and compare him with the man who emerged, we know that it wasn't naught.
Show me a man who has never suffered,  and I'll show you not a man but a boy.
"We mature because we hurt"
The beauty of suffering, if one loves God and His son, is that we never have to go through it alone.

To belittle our sufferings is to belittle God's mercy in helping us to persevere.  But no one wants to hear you complain all the time about it; No! But that wasn't what I meant.
I mean that to wear an inner mask and to pretend you feel no pain, no fear,  no loneliness would be to shut your heart down to God.  For if you are not suffering, you do not recognize your need of Him.  We all suffer, and once sin came,  I believe we're meant to suffer.
But when all seems right,  God is cast aside. And,  you must admit, there are many kinds of suffering.

Not all bear the scourge of leprosy or dropsy,  not all have been in an accident,  but inside of us we all suffer under the load of sin, whether we realize it or not.
Sin is a scourge,  a leprous state, which has fallen on all of Adam's race. 
Some see it as such without the physical chastening of God and are recipients of His mercy.  With others,  the lesson must be harsher, an outward reflection of what has always been inwardly since the day we were born.

So in the end, we all realize our need for God's mercy,  whether the realization comes before we die or afterwards.