When we’re experiencing pain, it’s hard to understand why God allows us to go through hard times. One way to think of it is that God won’t coddle us, but he will console and comfort us. Coddling someone means you treat them in an indulgent or overprotective way, and God won’t do that to us. He gives us freewill to make our own decisions and mistakes and he consoles and comforts us in our suffering. Consoling means to enter into the loneliness or solitude of another so that they are no longer alone, and comforting means to give strength. So when we go through hard times, we can know that we are not alone, and if we allow God to enter into our suffering, he will make us stronger. Fr. Mark-Mary often finds himself saying, “Yes this is difficult, but that’s okay.”