God was there all the time

In her book Amazing Grace: A vocabulary of faith, Kathleen Norris writes,

As is often the case, what comes easily is of considerably less value than that which comes hard, earned over time and with a struggle.

I once heard a Holocaust survivor asked if her experience of a death march and forced labor camp hadn't destroyed her faith in God. "Of course," she said, adding, "but only for a time." She had come to the conclusion that what she and so many others had endured was not God's doing, but was due to human beings having chosen to do evil. She said she now believed that God was good, but had given people the ability to choose between good and evil. As for the terrors that she and the other Jews of her village had endured, she had come to believe that God had been there all the time, suffering with them....

The woman was describing the God of ordinary religious faith, but her rediscovery of this God in adulthood had come to her by extraordinary and unspeakably cruel means.

Does faith have to come through a hard struggle? Or is it just more valuable if it does come through darkness and tears?

In the archives is a talk from the Questioning Your Faith series on Why does God allow suffering?