'A sufferer's primal need is to hear God talking and to experience him purposefully at work. That changes everything. Left to ourselves, we blindly react. Our troubles obsess and distract us. We grasp at straws. God seems invisible, silent, far way. Pain and loss cry out loud and long. Faith seems inarticulate. Sorrow and confusion broadcast on all channels. It's hard to remember anything else, hard to put into words what is actually happening, hard to feel any force from who Jesus Christ is. You might mumble right answers to yourself, but it's like reading the phone book. You pray, but your words sound rote, vauguely unreal like pious generalities. You'd never talk to a real person like that. Meanwhile, the struggle churning within you is anything but rote and unreal. Pain and threat are completely engrossing. You're caught in a swirl of apprehension, anguish, regret, confusion, bitterness, emptiness and uncertainty.'
David Powlison, 'God's Grace in Your Sufferings' in John Piper & Justin Taylor (Ed.), Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, p. 149.
