the following was taken from Shea's blog sheaoakley.com

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It can be difficult to understand why a loving God sometimes allows long seasons of suffering in the lives of His children. When we are in the midst of such a time of trial, we may not understand why He does not immediately intervene to remove our pain.

At these times, it is important to remember that our Lord is not willing that we should endure suffering for one second longer than it takes for us to develop the aspect of His character for which that suffering has been allowed. God does not allow pain in our lives “for pain’s sake” but, rather, for our sake … so that we may become more like Him. This is true for all who are His blood-bought children through Christ.

I believe this is also true whether or not the trial is something for which we are responsible. In the first case, we’re undergoing chastisement with the goal of bringing about repentance which, if realized, always involves a change in character. In the second case, our Lord is using difficulties that arise simply from living in a fallen world to mold us into the image of His Son. In either situation, a perfectly loving God will not prolong redemptive pain unnecessarily for those who trust in Him because to do so would be contrary to His nature.

Of course, we do not often feel loved in such circumstances. There are things we endure in life that seem almost gratuitously long-lasting. Whether a period of unemployment, a time of relational struggle, or an illness, it can sometimes feel like the suffering will never end. This is especially true for those of us who grew up with a sense of entitlement — a generalized sense that life should not be too hard for too long (although, anyone can begin to feel this way while in some seemingly unendurable trial.)

When we start to feel like we can no longer endure the struggle, what we can do is remember that God knows what we are capable of bearing far better than we know ourselves. We also can pray without ceasing for genuine heart knowledge that His grace truly is sufficient. Prayer for endurance in a trial is found often in Scripture for a reason. We can take comfort in knowing that great men and women of the Bible fervently prayed and were ultimately carried through their trials here on earth. Their examples guide us in how we need to petition God while trusting that, like them, we will know deliverance and deeper Christian character.

Some might reasonably protest here that there are circumstances which lead to trials which we must bear until the day we die. This is true. What we must remember is that a trial can end while circumstances remain because the circumstances alone do not create our suffering. To a large extent our response to circumstances leads to our worst suffering. Sometimes the lessons we need to learn we cannot or will not learn in the time we are afforded in this life. Our Creator and Redeemer is well aware of this. Is it unreasonable, then, to propose that for some of us the refining fire must remain to the end because it is only then that the fruit of our endurance will be revealed?

In most of our experience it seems that tough circumstances start being altered as soon as we learn the character-building lesson that our proper response enables. We may not know the exact time the lesson was learned, but most of us eventually realize that things began to change for us on the outside when things began to change for us from within.

Our Father loves us too much to end a difficult circumstance before it fully achieves His sanctifying purpose. But once this happens, He will remove us from the refiner’s fire…and then see His image better reflected in us.