Suffering

We are, rather, claiming that the lives of those who face the extremities of suffering open-eyed, but with faith and love, show us that faith in God's love is possible in a world like this. They show us that faith in God's love does not have to be destroyed in the extremity of suffering, and that faith in God's love does not have to be a form of delusion or evasion in such extremity - but that it can be a way of living with and responding to such suffering: it can be a way of winning a kind of victory over such suffering even while being crucified by it. Those who suffer much can show to those who suffer little that they can hold to their own faith with integrity, without denying the existence of extreme suffering, or betraying those who do suffer such extremity. And all those who suffer become for us, like Christ in the passion, signs that teach what faith and love mean when they are stripped of all consolations and comforts - and so signs that teach what true faith and love are about everywhere. This lived reality of protest (rather than resignation), of lament (rather than hardening) and of Christlike love (as that which gives all for the other) is a reality that finds its bearing in the light of the great realities of God's love. Such a posture towards life is the only theodicy worth having. 

Jason Goroncy on page 40 of Theodicy, Suffering and Faith.