Pain

 Pain.  It's no wonder torture is such an effective tool, because you get to the point that you'll do almost anything to get the pain to stop.  But it doesn't have to be big pain.  Constant dull pain is its own kind of torture.  It's not bad enough that you can go to the hospital or justify making a big fuss.  It's just THERE, never ending.  It makes you irritable with the people you love and even worse with annoying people.  It's on your mind constantly and you can't get away from it.  It's hard to find anything to be grateful about in constant pain.

It's there, though.  It's in the doctor who gives you medicine despite all the hassles he has to go through to do it.  It's in the family who holds you close and tries to make life easier for you.  It's in your own understanding that other people are going through much, much worse in Haiti and other troubled regions.

God gives us challenges so that we can find grace.