Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict you,
Alas, suffering is ever with us.  There is no house it has not invaded, no home that is exempt from it and no life that is untouched by it.  "The whole creation groaneth in travail"  (Romans 8:22), and this is true not merely in the teeming wards of great hospitals.  "Man is born to trouble as sparks fly upward."  Suffering is everywhere; and that person who is fortunate enough to have little of it in his own personal life is yet scarred and seared by it in the ravishing of loved ones.