 I know the doubts and the difficulties you're talking about, but in a way, looked at it from the other side, what that suffering did, what that pain did, is perhaps it pulled you out of yourself. We all have this tendency to kind of fall into ourselves, and sometimes, like a surgeon, you have to pull something out, and God will use pain to kind of pull us out so that we start thinking bigger thoughts about our lives, about the direction of our lives, and start thinking more seriously about Him and about our relationship to Him.