why are there suffering?

After watching a few episodes of the "Human Spirit", there were a lot of strange cases of people suffering, one of the most heartwrenching cases was about how a mother did not give up hope on her 3 girls - blind and deaf triplets. I asked the Lord, why are there suffering? Why are there people who has more suffering than others? Aren't you a merciful God? Why do you allow sufferings? And especially to young children. In this case, the triplets were born blind and deaf - double tragedy.

I guess I got the answer today when I read a blog post by sister Shiya. It is an excerpt from "Compelled by Love by Heidi Baker". Let me repost it here:

"There is major suffering all over the world. We can use our suffering to be more like Jesus, or we can let bitterness fester inside our hearts. Somehow, in God's mercy, He allows us to understand the pain of others so that we can become more like Jesus in our compassion. He can even use suffering because He knows how to turn everything around for good.

Whatever you have experienced, you can also sympathize with in others. If you have been thirsty, you can understand thirst. If you have been lonely, you can understand loneliness. In the same way, we can also use our suffering to comfort those who are mourning. God can use even the worst things from our lives and turn them into something good, if only we let Him."