In Training

A different way of looking at life, and it's hardships, is to look at them as a form of training. 
It is mentioned that we are to put on the armor of God. For what use if not that we are to be in battle?
Every difficulty, I have decided, is a training program. God allows Satan to send horrible things against us, that we may indeed show perseverance
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 2 Pt 5

 3 Not only so, but we[c] also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Rom 5

Oh, that we stand up through our trainings. Having a chronic illness which wounds one's hope all too easily, I think often of trainings I have already gone through. Those battles, when I could have "cursed God and died" seemed impossible at the time. Endless, impossible, cruel. And yet now those battles are endlessly useful. 
More importantly, hope truly entered into life. Not hope of being better, of bettering anorexia, or agoraphobia. No. Hope of the Lord. The knowledge that He doesn't ever leave His beloved ones. 
Think also of the passage of the armor of God. Soldiers are very often in training, passing certain tests is a requirement. Who are we fighting in this armor? Human nature, both our own and others...but also the battle we do not even see. 
We are in training for a battle we can see, and a battle we cannot. 
Somehow taking life's hardships in the form of training makes  it easier for me. All new jobs are difficult because everyone goes through a training process, learning the ropes of how the business wants workers to work. Through our hardships we are given different jobs. Sometimes the job only has to do with our own life and walk, sometimes it is in preparation for a future duty with other people. I bet often it has to do with both. 
Read your training manual. There is no manual ever written which is better.